Moscato d’Asti

Moscato d’Asti is a sweet, gently sparkling white from Piedmont in northern Italy, made from Moscato Bianco grapes. Expect peach, apricot and fresh grape flavours with orange blossom and honeysuckle. Light, fragrant and low in alcohol, it’s brilliant with cheesecake, fruit tarts, pavlova, fresh berries and spicy Asian food.

Taste:

Sweet, peachy and just a little bit fizzy.

Moscato d’Asti is typically sweet and light-bodied, with gentle bubbles – known as frizzante – rather than the full fizz you’d expect from Champagne or Prosecco.

Expect ripe peach, apricot, fresh grapes and citrus, alongside intensely floral aromas of orange blossom and honeysuckle.

Fresh acidity keeps the sweetness lively, while alcohol levels are usually remarkably low compared with most wines.

It's fragrant, refreshing and extremely easy to drink.

The danger here isn't the alcohol. It's forgetting there are other people at the table.

Food Pairings:

Moscato d’Asti is brilliant with fruit-based and creamy desserts.

Try it with strawberry cheesecake, raspberry cheesecake, peach tart, apricot tart, fruit tart, pavlova, panna cotta or strawberries and cream.

Fresh fruit works beautifully too, particularly strawberries, raspberries, peaches, apricots and tropical fruit.

Its sweetness also makes Moscato d’Asti a great match for spicy Asian food. Try it with Thai green curry, Thai red curry, spicy noodles or dishes featuring chilli, ginger and aromatic spices. The sweetness helps soften the heat while the bubbles and acidity keep everything fresh.

For cheese, creamy styles such as Brie, mascarpone and mild blue cheese can work particularly well.

Similar Wines:

If you enjoy Moscato d’Asti, Asti Spumante is the obvious next move. It’s made from the same grape in the same region but brings a fuller level of sparkle.

Moscato lets you explore the wider family of sweet, aromatic wines, while Brachetto d'Acqui offers a sweet, gently sparkling red alternative packed with strawberry and rose.

For something similarly aromatic without the bubbles, try Muscat Blanc.

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More About Moscato d’Asti:

Moscato d’Asti comes from Piedmont in northwestern Italy and is made from the highly aromatic Moscato Bianco grape.

Fermentation takes place in pressurised tanks and is stopped before all of the grape’s natural sugar has been converted into alcohol. That leaves the finished wine sweet, lightly sparkling and relatively low in alcohol.

Unlike Asti, which is fully sparkling or spumante, Moscato d’Asti is frizzante, meaning the bubbles are softer and gentler.

It also has DOCG status as part of the Asti appellation.

Sweet, fizzy and low alcohol.

Moscato d’Asti has somehow found the loophole.