This week in London, Ontario temperatures have been in the 12-17 degree range. This means that it's basically spring, and that gets me in the mood for refreshing, easy drinking beverages. I have recently stepped rather far out of my usual wine profile and have discovered a rather healthy (or perhaps not so healthy) appreciation for a
grape called Muscat. The Italian version is referred to as Moscato, and that has been the popular choice of name for this grape even when it doesn't hail from the boot. These are usually white wines, quite sweet, with varying levels of effervescence.
Talking about sweeter wines, we should talk about the sugar scale. I may have touched on it previously when covering coolers, but since all coolers are some level of sweet, I think it's important to understand what it means in wine. Your typical robust red wines (Cabs, Merlots, etc) are 2 or under, which means dry. Wines in the 3-6 range would be considered medium, while anything 7 or over would be deemed sweet. My palette disagrees somewhat in that I think anything over 4 is very sweet, but that's not necessarily a bad thing.
Here are the 4 Moscatos I have tried and what I think of them.
Emeri Pink Moscato, Australia, $14.95
Sugar Content 6
This was our special New Year's Eve bubbly. It is a sparkling Moscato with delicate, fizzy bubbles and tastes of sweet berries. With the 6 sugar code, I actually expected this to taste sweeter, but perhaps the bubbles helped to reduce the sugar's potency. I'm not sure this is one I'll go back to, but if I were to serve it with food, it would be with a fruit and custard tart.
Barefoot Moscato, California, $9.95
Sugar Content 6
This wine was served to me at one of the meetings of my amateur winemakers club as our welcome cocktail. I haven't tried many of Barefoot's offerings because I have the impression that they are very commercial based on their very large production of young, fruity, inexpensive wines. I would say that this Moscato was true to my assumption. While the sugar code is the same as the sparkling wine above, it had a far sweeter taste in my mouth and was a little too heavy in my opinion. I need a sweet drink to feel light, and this just felt like I was going to get a headache due to it's syrupy quality.
Robert Mondavi Woodbridge Moscato, California, $11.95
Sugar Content 5
My husband and I took a little getaway to Muskoka and this was one of the wines we brought. We opened the bottle next to the campfire one evening, and while I wouldn't say that that was the ideal condition for drinking this wine, it was very enjoyable. Not as thickly sweet as the Barefoot, it was lighter and quite easy drinking. My husband said it was like drinking juice, in a very good way. An LCBO customer recently told me that it's great with pie, a recommendation that I'm absolutely going to have to decide on for myself. Bring on peach pie season.
Botter Puglia Moscato, Italy, $9.95 (8 Bonus Airmiles until March 31, 2012)
Sugar Content 5
This wine is just quite lovely. It's not sparkling per sé, but it does offer a slight fizz that is very enjoyable and makes the sweet, melony flavours dance around your mouth. I have a feeling that this is going to be my hot summer day drink of choice this summer. You want to chill it very thoroughly, and the screw cap is a nice feature. Although you may lose some of the the bubbly features of the wine, it means that it's a little easier to throw back in the fridge and enjoy again the next day, if there's any left, of course.
So there is my Moscato review... I hope that you give one or more of them a try, even if you think you don't like this type of wine. You may surprise yourself. And if you really don't like it, I know someone with an empty glass.
Until we drink again,
Cheers!
