Why moscato’s your must-try summer wine
FRIENDS bumping into Bill Jones thought he was a ghost – after they read a local obituary for a man of the same name, with a wife called Pam just like his.
Ex-councillor Bill is well-known in his part of Devon so neighbours and mates at his cricket club and OAP group took the death to be his.The age was about right too.
Bill, 85, of Tiverton, said the confusion began after a friend spotted the announcement in the newspaper: “She read the obit and told my neighbour, ‘Have you heard about Bill? He died’. She then phoned another friend.
“For a while everyone thought I was dead. I’ve been walking around and seeing people. It is like they have seen a ghost.”
The former insurance worker found his namesake had lived 15 miles away in Exeter but the obituaries leave out address details to prevent burglaries.
Bill added: “I feel sorry for the family of the other Bill Jones.”
THE MOSCATO bianco is possibly the oldest domesticated grape variety in the world, producing a huge variety of styles with colours ranging from white to yellow to pink to near black. Known as moscato (Italy), muscat (France) and muscadel (Spain), it’s a highly adaptable family of grapes that includes more than 200 varieties. Italy is its spiritual home, producing more moscato than any other country largely in the form of Moscato d’Asti – a sweet, lightly sparkling wine made from moscato bianco.
Unlike méthode traditionnelle wines like Champagne, moscato’s sparkle comes entirely from fermentation in pressurised tanks. It’s highly aromatic, with floral scents and often notes of peach and apricot.Asti spumante is made in the same area using the same grape but is slightly drier, more fully sparkling and with a higher alcohol content.
Still moscatos are mostly made with moscato bianco/ muscat blanc.These are often dry but the aromatics are so sweet and fruity you might be tricked into thinking you are drinking a sweet wine. Both sparkling and still wines pair well with spicy food. But they’re also fantastic served chilled on their own – the ideal complement to a sunny afternoon.
Moscato dessert wines also come in a huge range of styles. The French make a lightly flavoured fortified wine called Muscat de Beaumes de Venise, the Spanish make a moscatel sherry, the Sicilians often partially dry the grapes to concentrate the sweetness and Australian Rutherglen muscat is so sweet you can pour it over ice cream!
Tomorrow, quite bizzarely, is National Moscato Day... so if you needed an excuse to try this friendly wine, there it is.
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