Moscato d’Asti, one of the world’s most soulful wines, yes!

One of the reasons why I wanted to be part of this blog was because I wanted a forum where I could share my feeling that Moscato d’Asti is actually one of Italy’s most soulful wines.

Here in Houston yesterday, I led a seminar and guided tasting of five wines from Moscato d’Asti with five top producers (who presented their wines) and roughly 60 Houston-based wine professionals. Most of the attendees were restaurant professionals or wine-focused restaurant professionals and/or sommeliers and wine directors.

As I did my introduction and presentation before the producers began to speak, you could see some of the surprised reaction among the attendees. My goal was to share with them my experiences with Moscato d’Asti and the people who grow and vinify it.

There’s no way around it: Many American wine professionals perceive Moscato d’Asti solely as a mass-produced, easy-drinking wine with little substance or character. There’s no sense in assigning blame for that.

But one of the reasons why I wanted to be part of this blog was because I wanted a forum where I could share my feeling that Moscato d’Asti is actually one of Italy’s most soulful wines.

Here are the bullet points I used for my talk.

1) ALL of Moscato d’Asti is family grown. Even the largest producers source their grapes from legacy families who have been farming in the Moscato d’Asti Docg for generations.

2) ALL of Moscato d’Asti is made from hillside-grown fruit. There is no “valley floor” in Moscato d’Asti where commercial growers can farm and harvest using machines. The overall quality of the viticulture there is very, very high.

3) ALL of Moscato d’Asti is made using a variation on the “ancestral wine method,” in other words, the first and second fermentations are carried out in the same sealed tank. This means the wine is vinified in “reduction,” without the presence of oxygen. This is part of the reason the fruit aromas and flavors are SO fresh and so rich.

4) ALL of Moscato d’Asti is made using natural grape sugar. Nature doesn’t refine sugar. Only humankind does. Refined sugar doesn’t exist in nature. Refined sugar is added to nearly every other category of sparkling wine but not to Moscato d’Asti. It’s made using only (!!!) the grape’s natural sugar.

5) Because of all the above, Moscato d’Asti is one of Italy’s most terroir-driven wines. Place matters immensely for these wines. And it was evident in our tasting that the five wines, although easily identifiable as Moscato d’Asti, were extremely different among each other.

But the best part of the event was when one of the producers said…

Stay tuned for more!