The character

Muscat is not a single grape but a family of related varieties — Muscat Blanc à Petits Grains (the noblest), Muscat of Alexandria (more widely planted, less refined), and Muscat Ottonel (a newer variety) are the most important. The family is one of the oldest in cultivation, dating back to ancient Greek and Roman times. All Muscats share an unmistakable aromatic profile of grape, orange blossom, rose petal, and sometimes lychee — a wine that genuinely smells of the fruit it came from.

Where it grows best

Muscat Blanc à Petits Grains: Beaumes-de-Venise (sweet southern Rhône Muscat), Frontignan, Saint-Jean-de-Minervois, Lunel (the great sweet Muscats of the Languedoc), Italy’s Asti and Moscato d’Asti, Sicily (Moscato di Pantelleria — passito-style dried-grape sweet wine), Greece (Samos Muscat), Alsace (dry Muscat). Muscat of Alexandria: Pantelleria, Portugal’s Setúbal, Spain’s Málaga. Muscat Ottonel: Alsace, Austria, Hungary.

How it tastes

Muscat is the most aromatically obvious wine in the world. The signature is fresh table-grape flavor — Muscat is one of the only wine grapes that tastes like the grape itself. Beyond that: orange blossom, rose petal, lychee, white peach, honeysuckle, sometimes a candied-citrus note. Dry Muscat shows the aromatics with full freshness; sweet Muscat amplifies them and adds honey, candied fruit, and apricot.

How it ages

Most dry Muscat is meant for early drinking. Sweet Muscats — particularly Moscato di Pantelleria, Samos, Beaumes-de-Venise, and top vintage Asti — age twenty to forty years and develop a remarkable honeyed, candied-fruit, sometimes coffee-and-caramel tertiary complexity.

What to pair with

Dry Muscat: aperitif, light salads with citrus, prosciutto and melon, Asian-influenced dishes with ginger and lemongrass. Sweet Muscat: fruit-based desserts (especially anything with apricot or peach), foie gras, light cakes, soft cheeses. Moscato d’Asti specifically is one of the great brunch wines on earth.