Moscato d’Asti and Asti Spumante showcase the best of Piemonte’s lighter side.
The northern Italian region of Piemonte is famous for its agricultural bounty, including rare truffles, fragrant hazelnuts, and rich red wines like Barolo, which can sell for $1,000/bottle. Just like its bold reds, Piedmont has its own notable white wines—with an even longer, more impressive tradition behind them.
From a small area around the town of Asti, about an hour’s drive east of the capital Torino, come Moscato d’Asti and Asti Spumante. These aromatic white wines, so named because of their intensely fragrant notes that can include peach, orange blossom, and wisteria, are made from the moscato bianco grape, an ancient variety that dates back to the Roman empire. And while it was carried to various corners of the world (often found elsewhere as “muscat”), this golden grape thrives best where it was born, in Piemonte’s rolling hills.
Winemakers talk of “terroir” to describe how the essence of a place, its soil, surface, and geography, can impact the flavor of a wine. In the Asti wine region, the terroir includes steep hills positioned between the warm Mediterranean and the chilly Alps, with mineral-rich soil that once fed prehistoric ocean beds. All together, it makes for deeply flavorful grapes which, of course, make even more flavorful wine!
“Each bottle of Asti and Moscato d’Asti DOCG captures the essence of the land, the climate, and the growing season in our beautiful region,” says Stefano Ricagno, president of the Consorzio Asti DOCG and a winemaker whose family has been making wine in the region for six generations.
Both Moscato d’Asti and Asti Spumante have a festive sparkle and are officially known as frizzante (semi-sparkling) and spumante (sparkling), respectively. The innovation that makes their bubbles—a method now used to make sparkling wines around the world—was invented in Asti by a man named Federico Martinotti. Instead of the old time- and labor-intensive Champagne method, he figured out how to use pressurized tanks to create that signature sparkle, allowing for fresher, brighter flavors to shine through in the finished product.
Asti wines are protected by the highest DOCG designation, a step above the usual DOP protection that controls how a certain product from a place is made. (Parmigiano Reggiano, balsamico di Modena, and San Marzano tomatoes are just a few Italian DOP products.) The “G” means it is guaranteed by the government to be especially high quality—basically, DOCG is a label that assures you are getting the best of the best. To use the name Moscato d’Asti or Asti Spumante, a wine must go from grape to bottle within the Asti region, using only the moscato bianco grape, with no added sugars or other adulteration.
If you’re interested in trying these stunning wines for yourself, be sure to look for the DOCG emblem on the label to ensure you’re getting the real thing. With a low alcohol profile (around 5% compared to 9-14% in most other wines), Moscato d’Asti is easy to enjoy casually. “While Asti Spumante and Moscato d’Asti are often seen as perfect for celebrations, they’re versatile wines,” says Ricagno. In Piemonte they’re often served at aperitivo hour with a simple snack of bread and butter topped with anchovies, the briny, umami-packed fish balanced by the wine’s bright and floral notes. Giada loves them with a simply flavorful pasta, as their aromatic notes highlight bold flavors like salt and spice. They’re also traditionally enjoyed with panettone at Christmastime, the epitome of celebration.
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