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Every European language’s word for wine is derived from Latin.

Answer: False.

Indeed, Hungarian, Greek, and Turkish have words for wine not derived from Latin. In Hungary, home of Tokaji Aszú, considered one of the great dessert wines of the world, the word for wine is bor. Modern Hungarians are descended from the Magyars, an ancient tribe from the Ural Mountains, who arrived in the region in the ninth century. While the vines and viticultural and winemaking practices they found dated from Roman times, the Magyars introduced their idiosyncratic language, one of the few languages in Europe today that does not belong to the Indo-European language family. With a language that predates the Romans, the Greeks speak of wine using words that include oínos (EE-nohs), derived from the name of the Greek god of wine, Dionysus, and krasí (KRAH-see). The ancient Greeks never drank their wine straight, a practice they deemed “barbaric.” They always diluted it with water in a vase called a kratiras, derived from the word krasis, which means “mixture.” Modern Turkey (which is partly in southeastern Europe) is the product of thousands of years acting as a crossroads between the East and the West. and its language, therefore, is a melting pot of Turkish, Persian, and Arabic. The Turkish word for wine is şarap (SAH-rahp) and comes via the Persian word sharab, meaning both “wine” specifically and “beverage” in general. Wine was so integral to daily life for the Persians that the word for wine derived from the verb sharaba meaning simply “to drink.”

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Among the names of famous Bordeaux wines, the words mouton, lafite, and cos all derive from old Gascon words for “sheep.”

Answer: False.

The now iconic terms are actually related to the archaic words for “hill.” Many of Bordeaux’s best vineyards are often on slight hillocks and/or on very well-drained soils of gravel and stone. As testament to this, their names: Chateau Mouton Rothschild, Chateau Lafite Rothschid, and Chateau Cos d’Estournel often pay tribute to this critical feature. While many of the vineyards of Bordeaux—and especially of the Médoc, including Margaux, Pauillac, St.-Julien, and St.-Estèphe—appear quite flat, there are gently rolling hills that create variations in topography, orientation to the sun, soil, and drainage patterns.

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To prevent having purple teeth, you should brush your teeth immediately after drinking deeply colored red wine.

Answer: False.

Although tooth enamel is the hardest tissue in the body, it’s extremely susceptible to staining and the erosion caused by acids, a primary component in all wines. Yet experts actually recommend you wait at least 30 minutes after drinking wine before brushing. “After drinking wine, your mouth is an acidic environment. Brushing the acid into your teeth increases the risk of erosion,” warns Dr. John Aylmer. Better still, brush before drinking as well, to minimize the amount of plaque that wine can stick to in the first place.

Naturally, red wine is the usual suspect for purple teeth because it contains a large amount of chromogens, pigment-producing substances that bind to teeth and cause staining. (Chromogens are also found in coffee and tea, two other classic culprits.) Tannins, abundant in grapes skins, aid in this binding effect. However, white wine is no innocent bystander. White wine is typically higher in acid, which weakens your teeth’s enamel and leaves them more vulnerable to colorful food and drink.

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Tawny Port is so named because of its tawny color.

Answer: True.

The sweet fortified wine known as Port, from the Douro region of Portugal, is one of the most complex and ageworthy wines in the world. Of the top five most important styles, aged tawny Port gets my vote for the most sublime style of Port. (So-called young tawny Port, simple and not aged very long, are not often exported). Its flavors—toasted nuts, brown sugar, figs, and vanilla—are like some otherworldly sophisticated version of cookie dough. And the texture of a great tawny is pure silk. The wines used in the blend for an aged tawny are usually wines of the highest quality. Tawny Ports are kept a minimum average of ten years in barrel until they become tawny/auburn in color.

All Ports begin as a sweet wine with about 7 percent residual sugar (70 grams sugar per liter), fortified to about 20 percent alcohol. It is the maturation and aging processes that set the styles of Port apart. Tawny Ports are blends of Ports from different years. Each of those Ports has been kept in barrels for a long period of time. Tawny Ports are labeled as either 10, 20, 30, or 40 years old, and sometimes even more. The age listed on the label is the average age of all the wines used in the blend. And it’s not a rough guess. Port Shippers are required to document the wines in the final blend, and then that final blend is sent to the Port Wine Institute to be taste-tested by an expert panel before the tawny Port can be certified and sold.

A word about sweetness. While Tawny Port is sweet, it does not taste saccharin or candylike. At least the great ones don’t. Indeed, Tawny Port made well should start off tasting sweet but finish tasting dry. That’s because the acidity, alcohol, and tannin in the wine are all carefully calibrated to balance out the sweetness. Tawny Ports are among the best-loved Ports in Portugal, France, and Britain, where they are often drunk (chilled) both as an aperitif, as well as at the close of a meal.

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A vineyard’s exposure to wildfire smoke can affect the following year’s crop, as well as the current grapes.

Answer: False.

The exposure of vineyards and grapes to strong, sustained smoke may result in wines that smell smoky, burnt, bacony, medicinal, or like an ashtray—all examples of what is commonly described as “smoke taint.” When tree wood burns, aroma compounds called volatile phenols are released. In the vineyard, these compounds can permeate the grape skins and rapidly bond with the sugars inside the grapes to form molecules called glycosides. Unfortunately, the effects of the smoke exposure are masked because the bonded phenols are indetectable by smell or taste. However, once grapes are fermented, the acidity in the resulting wine will begin to break these bonds, releasing the unpleasant aromas into the finished wine. Because “smoke taint” is absorbed into grapes on the vine through their skins and the vine’s leaves, both of which are removed during harvest and later during pruning, numerous studies confirm that smoke taint does not linger in the vine in a way that could affect future harvests.

While smoke tainted wine won’t harm the consumer, growers who suspect, or have tested for, smoke taint may choose not to make wine with grapes from affected vineyards. And although not making wine can have severe financial repercussions, the grapes can still be used in other ways. Grapes can be harvested directly onto the ground to decompose into natural fertilizer. Smoke-affected grapes are safe to use as a source of feed for livestock and for the production of neutral alcohol spirits. Smoke taint compounds can also be mostly removed during the distillation process (for example, in the production of brandy).

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The oldest vineyard quality ranking system in the world is Bordeaux’s 1855 Classification.

Answer: False.

It was in the late 1600s, about a century and a half before Bordeaux’s 1855 Classification, in Hungary’s famous Tokaj-Hegyalja (TOKE-eye hedge-AL-ya) region that the first system for ranking wine on the basis of quality was developed. The Tokaj region produces both dry and sweet wines, but it is the lusciously honeyed wine Tokaji Aszú for which it is world-famous. Indeed, Tokaji Aszú has been called “the Sauternes of eastern Europe,” but perhaps the phrase should be reversed and Sauternes should be called “the Tokaji Aszú of France,” since it was in the 17th century in the Tokaj region, not Sauternes, that the world’s first sweet, botrytized wines were made. Not long after those first Tokaji Aszus were made, Hungarian Prince Rákóczi issued a royal decree assigning the vineyards of Tokaj rankings of first, second, and third class, using the Latin designations Primae Classis, Secunde Classis, and so on. In addition, two vineyards, Csarfas and Mézes Mály, were given a special designation, a sort of super-first-class status called Pro Mensa Caesaris Primus, or “chosen for the royal table.” In total, 173 vineyards were classified, and others that were not particularly well-sited were listed as unclassified. Throughout much of the forty-year Communist regime in Hungary from 1949 to 1989, with vineyards in poor condition, the classification system was largely meaningless. But in 1995, the top producers of Tokaji formed an association called Tokaj Renaissance, with the goal of reviving the significance of the old classification system. And finally, as an important aside, Bordeaux’s 1855 Classification system did not rank vineyards. It ranked estates.

You can read Karen’s blog, “The Sensory Appeal of Tokaji” here, and more Fascinating Facts about “the king of wines” here.

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The amount of sulfites in red wine is two orders of magnitude lower than the amount in dried fruit.

Answer: True.

Red wines contain about 50-75 parts per million of sulfites, whites contain about 100-150 ppm, and dried fruit typically contains almost 3,700 ppm (and French fries have more than 1800 ppm). Yet there is a pervasive belief among U.S. wine consumers that the sulfur dioxide (SO₂) that can legally be added to wine to inhibit microbial spoilage and to keep it from immediately oxidizing, causes headaches. Many steer clear of wine for this reason. Perhaps that’s because since 1988, a sulfite warning label has been required by law on all bottles of wine sold in the U.S. that contain 10 parts per million SO₂ or more. Andrew L. Waterhouse, a professor of enology in the department of Viticulture and Enology at the University of California at Davis has said: “There’s no data showing sulfites cause headaches. But people ascribe all sorts of nasty things to sulfites because there’s a label.” Sulfur is found in the natural environment (it’s part of the earth’s crust) and sulfites are a natural by-product of fermentation, so some amount of sulfite is going to be found in wines whether it’s added or not. Meanwhile, the FDA estimates that only about 1 percent of Americans are sulfite hypersensitive—and 5 percent of that 1 percent are asthmatics, for whom sulfites can cause difficulty in breathing. But not a headache. The so-called “red wine headache” is more likely the result of the drinker being dehydrated or of alcohol, tannins, histamines or sometimes high residual sugar, rather than the 0.005% of SO2 in the glass.

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Barolo, Barbaresco, and Barbera are the three most important grape varieties in Piedmont, Italy.

Answer: False.

Ok, trick question—Barolo and Barbaresco, two of Italy’s most legendary and serious reds, are not grape varieties but the names of wines made in the Alba region of Piedmont from nebbiolo grapes. The red grape barbera is Piedmont’s most widely planted variety and the region’s favorite every night dinner wine. Vineyard estates in Piedmont, Italy’s preeminent wine region, are meticulously cared for and mostly small (the average vineyard estate is 3 to 5 acres/1.2 to 2 hectares), which reflects vintners’ philosophic belief that great wine is the progeny of a single, perfectly adapted grape variety—in this case, nebbiolo. Supremely complex and riveting, Barolo and Barbaresco are esteemed throughout Italy because nebbiolo, one of the world’s most site-specific grape varieties, is one of the most difficult to master. No place else in the world has more nebbiolo than Piedmont, and no place else has had more success with this complicated grape. Barolo and Barbaresco are highly structured, expensive wines that can be aged for years, even decades. Today most are made in a way that renders them softer (but not soft, exactly) at a younger age, and thus enjoyable earlier. These formidable, firm, black-red wines are meant for carnivorous drama—for whole roasted pigs or lambs—or with grand pastas showered with white truffles (Alba, after all is the Shangri-La of these mythic culinary fungi) and costing a ransom. Needless to say, Barolo and Barbaresco are decidedly not what the Piedmontese drink with dinner every night. That distinction goes to barbera (and another lovely red, dolcetto) a vibrant, mouthfilling, slightly rustic wine of the same name, oozing with a wealth of fruit flavors. Barbera is an easy companion to food, thanks to its relatively high acidity and low tannin. Read Karen’s past Wine to Know reviews of VIETTI “Perbacco” Nebbiolo Langhe 2016 and GUIDO PORRO Barbera d’Alba “Vigna Santa Caterina” 2018.

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The oldest vines in the world can be found in Greece.

Answer: False.

In the late 1800s, the aphid-like insect known as phylloxera destroyed most of the vineyards of Europe, South Africa, and many in the Americas. Relatively isolated from the rest of the world, Australia was one of the last wine regions to be invaded by the pest. Swift, and it must be said—Draconian—measures imposed in the state of South Australia made it the only winegrowing region on the continent and one of the few in the world to side-step the scourge. Even today, South Australia is phylloxera-free, as a result of the strict quarantine laws it put in place in the 1890s. Those laws protected what are now some of the oldest vineyards in the world—vineyards which possess the original genetic plant material of Europe’s indigenous grapevines. Two important examples are in the Barossa Valley. The Hewitson family owns the Old Garden Vineyard which contains the world’s oldest mourvèdre, planted in 1853. And Penfold’s famous Kalimna “Block 42” of cabernet sauvignon planted in 1888 is thought to be the oldest cabernet sauvignon the world over. While definitive records do not exist, some of these vines are thought to be first generation cuttings from the famous James Busby Collection of vines originally planted at Sydney’s Botanical Gardens in the 1830s.

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The House of Mandela is one of approximately 50 black-owned wine brands in South Africa.

Answer: True.

South Africa is among the top 9 wine producers in the world. But while Black South Africans represent nearly 90% of the population, they represent fewer than 8% of wine producers. Elected in 1994, Nelson Rolihlahla Mandela was South Africa’s first Black president. Mandela’s release from Victor Verster Prison in Paarl, in 1990, after more than twenty-seven years in confinement, paved the way for the lifting of trade sanctions and the importation of South African wine into the United States. During this time, many wineries were established or taken over by new owners and black entrepreneurs saw an opportunity to enter the wine industry. In 2010, Nelson Mandela’s daughter Makaziwe and granddaughter Tukwini launched the House of Mandela wine brand, which includes a chardonnay, cabernet sauvignon, shiraz, and a sparkling wine. Tukwini has said: “When we started out, many people thought that House of Mandela was just a little project, a gimmick that would not last.” For the Mandela family, who are part of the royal aba Thembu lineage and the Madiba clan, honoring the ancient wisdom of one’s ancestors and honoring the earth give meaning and purpose to life. Upon the release of their wines, the family wrote, “we have chosen wine as a bridge into the future.”

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The Jurassic period of geologic time was named after the Jura wine region in eastern France.

Answer: True.

The Jurassic period occurred between 145 million and 200 million years ago and is best known as the Age of the Dinosaurs. It was named for the Jura Mountain Range, on the border between France and Switzerland, where limestone rocks of this age were first studied. The Jura skyline is punctuated by occasional limestone crags, the most dramatic of which are the reculées—steeply faced, horseshoe-shaped rock formations that form abrupt dead ends to valleys. The Jura is one of the smallest wine regions in France, known for producing wonderfully unique wines. The Jura’s most celebrated offering is Vin Jaune, or “Golden Wine,” made exclusively from the native white grape variety, savagnin. Vin jaune must be aged in oak casks for at least six years and three months, during which time it is neither racked nor topped up. As it ages, a film of yeast known as the voile (veil), forms on the wine’s surface, protecting it from oxidation. The resulting wine is golden in color with aromas of walnut, dried fruits, and toasted sourdough bread. The Jurassic period is also marked by the continued breakup of the supercontinent Pangaea, when oceans flooded the spaces between new landmasses, creating vast inland seas. One of the Jura’s four appellations, L’Etoile (the star), is said to be named for the ubiquitous star-shaped marine fossils which crunch underfoot throughout its vineyards.

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The designation “Napoléon” on a bottle of Cognac indicates that the grape-based spirit inside is over 50 years old.

Answer: False.

Unlike virtually all wines, most Cognacs are expected to be consistent year after year. Cellar masters achieve consistency by a complex and continual process of blending different lots of brandy, each of which may be a different age. Cognacs are classified according to the age of the youngest oak-aged brandy (or eaux-de-vie) in the blend. So, the average age of a Cognac is usually considerably older. The original age designations of Cognac are in English because Cognac has been exported for centuries, and the first importers were English. Today 96% of production is sold outside of France. Dozens of other nicknames in both English and French have joined the lexicon, making Cognacs labels notoriously difficult to decipher.

The official aging classifications used most often:
VS – Very Special, 3 Etoiles, ***, Sélection, De Luxe                                           minimum of 2 years
VSOP – Very Superior Old Pale, Réserve, Vieux, Rare, Royal                            minimum of 4 years
XO – Extra Old, Hors d’âge, Extra, Ancestral, Ancêtre, Or, Gold, Impérial      minimum of 10 years
XXO – Extra Extra Old                                                                                            minimum of 14 years

Other aging classifications:
Supérieur, Cuvée Supérieure, Qualité Supérieure                                              minimum of 3 years
Vieille Réserve, Réserve, Rare, Réserve, Royale                                                   minimum of 5 years
Napoléon, Très Vieille Réserve, Très Vieux, Héritage, Très Rare, Suprême      minimum of 6 years

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Alcohol gives wine its antiseptic properties.

Answer: False.

It’s actually the polyphenols in grape skins, not ethanol (the type of alcohol in wine), that give wine the antibacterial and antioxidant properties to kill pathogens and prevent infection. (As an aside: isopropyl rubbing alcohol, 2x more toxic than ethanol, will disinfect most germs). During the Middle Ages, physicians of the time believed wine could cure most ills, but it was principally used to clean wounds. Because red wine has spent more time in contact with grape skins, accumulating more polyphenols, it was preferred over white. As the medieval water supply was often contaminated, doctors would also use wine to clean their surgical instruments. Hospitals often accepted vineyard plots as payments and made their own supply of medicinal vino. A number of hospitals (hôpital or hospice in French) in Europe built impressive cellars to store this pharmacopeia, and a few now operate as museums. The Cave Historique des Hospices de Strasbourg offers tours of the caves originally installed at the Hôpital Civil de Strasbourg in France in 1395. The Hôtel-Dieu museum in Lyon, France, commemorates the Hospices de Beaune, founded in 1443, which is funded by the celebrated annual wine auction of the same name each November.

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Lambrusco salamino is so named because the long, cylindrical clusters look like small salamis.

Answer: True.

Emilia-Romagna, where Lambrusco originated, is Italy’s ultimate food region—the land that gives the world such serious delicacies as Parmigiano-Reggiano, balsamic vinegar, and prosciutto di Parma. Not surprisingly, the area’s trademark lambrusco wine tastes quite good with the region’s hearty sausages, cured meats, and rich, meat-sauced pastas. Moreover, locals insist that the light, fizzy, slightly bitter, fairly high-acid wine is the perfect aid to digestion. Lambrusco wines are made from at least thirteen different varieties with the word lambrusco (which means “wild grape” in Italian) in their name. Sadly, the only lambrusco most wine drinkers know is the highly commercial, slightly sweet stuff popularized in America by the giant Riunite Co-op in 1967. (It was America’s number-one selling imported wine brand from 1976-2002). However, the top versions of lambrusco, which use the traditional (Champagne) method of second fermentation in each bottle, are not sweet, but rather, dry and savory. Until recently, the zesty, artisanal lambruscos that any wine lover would prefer were available only in Emilia itself. But today, a number of fantastic small-production versions are easy to find, including Cleto Chiarli, Fattoria Moretto, Fiorini, Francesco Vezzelli, Lini, and Tenuta Pederzana.

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Prestige Cuvée Champagne wines are defined as those wines that come in elaborate, expensive bottles.

Answer: False.

Prestige cuvée Champagne bottles may come dressed in finery, but it is what’s inside that earns them the title. These are the finest (and most expensive) wines that a producer makes, from the best grapes in the top, highest-rated crus or vineyards of Champagne. The French refer to these singular offerings as têtes de cuvée, a term that can be loosely translated as “top batch.” Prestige cuvées are almost always vintage-dated, and are made only in exceptional harvests, on average 3 times per decade. One reason for this is that Champagne is one of the most northern wine growing regions in the world—at roughly the same latitude as the U.S.-Canadian border—with an inherently cool climate where the grapes struggle to ripen. Prestige cuvées are aged longer than other vintage Champagne wines (on average 10 years versus 3 years) and continue to develop in the bottle for another decade.

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Metal screwcap wine bottle closures were first introduced in the 1990’s by Australia.

Answer: False.

The first patent on twist cap technology was granted in 1858 to John Landis Mason (yup, the Mason jar) for a zinc twist cap. However, wine’s high acidity is corrosive to metal, making the screwcap a poor choice for sealing wine bottles. It wasn’t until the 1960’s when the French company Le Bouchage Mécanique in Chalon-sur-Saône, Burgundy invented an aluminum twist cap with a non-reactive underside, that the technology gained traction with the wine industry. The Swiss were among the early adopters, using the closure to bottle chasselas, a white wine that was particularly subject to cork taint. It wasn’t until the late 1990s, as Australia was experiencing rapid growth in its wine industry and a subsequent shortage of corks, that screw caps were used in significant volume and the successful results shared with the world. At that time, the Australian Wine Research Institute (AWRI) published the findings of their groundbreaking closure trial, which showed how well the screwcap retained wine’s freshness and prevented cork taint. So it would be more accurate to say that it was the Australians who threw their weight behind promoting the screwcap internationally and helped dispel the idea that screwcaps were only fit for low quality wines. Today, an estimated 5 billion full-size bottles a year are sealed this way.

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The first American Viticultural Area (AVA) was the Finger Lakes in New York State.

Answer: False.

But it’s not the Napa Valley either. The honor actually goes to Augusta, Missouri, which earned the official U.S. federal designation in June 1980, eight months before Napa Valley. An American Viticultural Area (AVA) is a designated appellation of origin used on American wine labels. An AVA is distinguished by geographic, geologic, and climatic features, with boundaries defined by the Alcohol and Tobacco Tax and Trade Bureau (TTB). There are currently 246 recognized AVAs in the U.S.—over half (139) are in California. Beginning in the mid 1800s, German settlers founded the Missouri wine region and Augusta became, for a time, the wine capital of the country. Prohibition forced growers nationwide to pull up wine grape vines (vitis vinifera), and many (including in Missouri) replanted with American species grapes such as concord, a vitis labrusca (or table grape) variety. Following the end of Prohibition, Augusta was slow to return to wine grape cultivation and California eventually took the wine capital title it still holds today.

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There are single-digit bonded wineries still in existence in California in Oakville.

Answer: True.

Well, there’s one. Originally built by two Frenchmen, Jean Adolphe Brun and Jean Chaix, the Brun and Chaix Oakville Winery became the 9th bonded winery in California in 1877. In the late 1870s, as wineries were founded and legally permitted, they were required to post a bond (a type of insurance) to guarantee payment of the federal excise taxes they would incur based on production volumes. Permit numbers were given in sequence beginning with, of course, BW-CA-1 (California bonded winery #1). Today the winemaking facility is called Napa Wine Company and is owned by the Pelissa and Hoxsey families of Ghost Block Estate Wines.

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Many Australian wines are labeled South Eastern Australia or South Australia. These designations are essentially the same except that one place is a bit more eastern than the other.

Answer: False.

In fact, they could not be more different. South Australia is one of the six Australian states. (These are comparable to states in the United States, although Australian states are much larger.) Within the state of South Australia are some of the country’s most famous wine regions, including the Barossa Valley (renowned for shiraz), the Clare Valley (remarkable for dry riesling), and Coonawarra (known for cabernet sauvignon). By contrast, South Eastern Australia is not a state, and in a sense, not a place in the same sense. It’s a legal designation that means the wine in the bottle is a blend of wines made from grapes that can be grown thousands of miles apart, often in three different states—New South Wales, Victoria, and South Australia. To give a New World analogy, a wine labeled South Eastern Australia is the rough equivalent of a wine hypothetically made from a blend of grapes grown in California, Oregon, Washington State, and Texas and then called “Western United States.” Not surprisingly, South Eastern Australia wines are often inexpensive wines meant for everyday drinking, while wines from South Australia are among the most expensive in the country.

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Moscato d’Asti has DOCG status, Italy’s highest wine classification—reserved for the country’s most classic, expressive wines.

Answer: True.

Forget what you think you know about Moscato D’Asti, often misidentified as cheap, sweet, bubbly plonk. The Italian semi-sparkling wine called Moscato d’Asti DOCG hails from Piedmont, also home of towering Barolos—many producers of which have long made Moscato d’Asti as well. DOCG (Denominazione di Origine Controllata e Garantita) certifies that the wine comes from a delineated place, is made using a specific method and uses traditional grapes. Moscato d’Asti is made in a style that is fresh, fruity, gently fizzy, sweet and low in alcohol, at around 5% abv. Its signature is its aromatics, courtesy of a compound called linalool which is also found in mint and citrus flowers. They burst from the glass with apricot, peach, tangerine, rose, orange blossom and even lychee. Moscato d’Asti is made from the grape muscat blanc à petits grains –the second most planted variety in Piedmont behind barbera. Muscat blanc à petits grains is just one of hundreds of grape varieties with the word “muscat” in its name even though most of these are genetically distinct.  Today, grapes with muscat in their names are made in virtually every style imaginable: dry, sweet, still, sparkling, and fortified. And grown virtually everywhere in the word—from France, Spain, and Austria, to Cyprus, South Africa, and Slovenia to Israel, Oregon, and Greece.