Wine of the Week: 2015 Cameron Hughes Lot 411 Moscato d’Asti

lot-411-moscato-2015

When moscato surged in popularity, a lot of bad moscato – much of it made from grapes grown in all the wrong places — hit the market. This is most definitely NOT one of those wines. It comes from 30-year-old vines grown in the hills outside Asti, in the Piedmont region of northwestern Italy — one of the world’s great appellations for the moscato bianco (or muscat blanc, as it’s known in many places) grape.

Moscato d’Asti typically is sweetish and lightly fizzy. During vinification, the fermentation is stopped early, when the alcohol level is still quite low (7 percent in this wine), so there’s still considerable sugar in the wine. The effervescence comes from the carbon dioxide that is a natural product of fermentation; it’s trapped because the wines are fermented in pressurized tanks.

The Cameron Hughes wine is aromatic and quite floral, with notes of orange, peach and orange blossom. It’s refreshing, slightly sweet and lightly sparkling. The wine is a great companion for simple desserts, like fruit, but with such a low alcohol level, you could slurp it down on its own on a hot day. And it’s just $13. Look for it at some Costcos, or order it here.