Asti Flashcards
Asti
Town and province in piemonte in north-west Italy whose name appears in local varietal reds made from Dolcetto, Freisa, and Barbera d’Asti. Unlike its counterpart Barbera d’Alba, made from vines traditionally planted in lesser sites where Nebbiolo will not ripen, Barbera has always been given supreme vineyard sites in Asti. Barbera d’Asti was elevated to docg in 2010, with three superior subzones: Tinella, Colli Astiani or Astiano, and Nizza. However Asti’s name is most commonly associated with playful, aromatic, lightly sparkling wine with modest alcohol levels that is Italy’s biggest-selling wine. In 1993, along with the superior moscato d’asti, Asti Spumante was elevated to docg status and renamed Asti, largely in an effort to distinguish it from the host of frizzante or sparkling wines produced in Italy from a host of grape varieties of very varying quality. Both Asti and Moscato d’Asti are produced from Moscato Bianco (muscat blanc à petits grains) in the provinces of Asti, Cuneo, and Alessandria, where vineyards total 9,490 ha/23,440 acres shared by 4,000 growers spread over 152 communes. Production has increased from 40 million bottles in the 1970s to 107 million bottles (or 800,000 hl/17,597,539 gallons) in 2011, made possible by a vine density of 4,000 vines/ha and a permitted yield of 100 tonnes/ha, although average vineyard size is just 2.45 ha/6 acres. Due to this fragmentation, large bottlers and négociant houses have traditionally dominated production. With the invention of the tank method (see sparkling winemaking) at the end of the 19th century, industrial production of Asti became a reality. The combination of large-volume production and small-scale viticulture has necessarily made Asti a blended wine from many sources, masking geographical differences in sites and zones. However, more and more producers are bottling their own produce, resulting in more artisanal wines, with single-vineyard bottlings becoming increasingly common. Asti comes in several versions, each determined by its alcoholic content, residual sugar, and intensity of sparkle. Asti differs significantly from Moscato d’Asti: it is more alcoholic (6 to 9.5% rather than Moscato d’Asti’s maximum of 6.5%), and it is fizzier (at least 3 bar of pressure in the bottle rather than Moscato d’Asti’s maximum of 2 bar). The best and ripest grapes are normally reserved for Moscato d’Asti. Often scorned for the many mediocre wines released under the Asti name, the wine never lost its popularity. The image and sales of Moscato in general and Asti in particular received a huge boost in the 2000s when several rap artists who had formerly praised the virtues of Champagne switched to mentioning Moscato in their songs. The subsequent boom in the US led to increased demand, and a call from the larger producers to enlarge the vineyard area. The Asti Consorzio has expressed doubts, fearing that expansion may prejudice quality.
Moscato D’Asti
Fragrant and lightly sweet, gently fizzy, dessert wine made in the piemonte region of north-west Italy now of docg status. It is produced from moscato bianco, Italy’s name for the aristocratic muscat blanc à petits grains, whose production in and around the town of asti increased enormously in the 20th and early 21st centuries. Santo Stefano Belbo is considered the cradle of Moscato in Piemonte, and at the end of the 19th century almost 80% of all Moscato was grown in the calcareous soils of Canelli, Santo Stefano Belbo, Calosso, Castiglione Tinella, and Cassinasco. Strevi, Riccaldone, and Acqui Terme in the province of Alessandria, then and now a source of excellent Moscato, produced another 5% of the total. These are still considered the classic zones for fine Moscato, although expansion of the zone has revealed a real vocation for Moscato on the slopes of Cossano Belbo, Mango, Neviglie, and Trezzo Tinella. Moscato d’Asti is therefore something of a misnomer, since much of the production is not in the province of Asti at all but in the province of Cuneo (stretching as far as Serralunga Alba in the eastern part of the barolo zone), and a significant proportion is in the province of Alessandria. Renewed commercial success, especially in the US, has put pressure on the consorzio to enlarge the production zone further, but by 2014 this had so far been resisted. As a wine, Moscato d’Asti is often lumped together with asti, although the two wines are discernibly different. With a maximum of 2 atmospheres of pressure in the bottle, less than a third that of Asti, Moscato d’Asti is only slightly frothy while Asti is fully sparkling. Its alcoholic strength is considerably lower (maximum 6.5% as opposed to Asti’s 6.5 to 9.5%), and Asti often tastes sweeter than the more flavourful Moscato d’Asti, even if its residual sugar is usually slightly lower. The ripest, and best, moscato grapes are used to produce Moscato d’Asti. By law, the minimum potential alcohol of grapes selected for Moscato d’Asti must be 10%, while for Asti the minimum is 9%. The ‘wine’ is classed as ‘partially fermented grape must’, for the juice is chilled and filtered immediately after pressing and fermented only when required in order to ensure that the beguiling aromas of the Moscato grape are not lost. Fermentation is stopped when the wine reaches 5.5% alcohol; the unfermented sugar lends a hedonistic grapey character to the wine, and helps to exalt the Moscato’s heady perfumes. Moscato d’Asti is not a classic dessert wine, its chief virtues being its delicacy, its intense aromas, and a sweetness that is as much suggested as forthrightly declared. While Moscato d’Asti’s reputation as ‘the perfect breakfast wine’ contains a nugget of truth, Moscato d’Asti Vendemmia Tardiva is a full-blown, still, sweet wine made from late-harvested or dried grapes. Moscato d’Asti production may have grown enormously but is still only a fraction of Asti’s (25 million bottles compared with the 75 million bottles of Asti) but it is now fully accepted as a classic and unusually refreshing expression of one of the world’s most important and popular grape varieties.
Moscato
Italian for muscat and the name of a sweetish varietal wine style for which there was a fashion in certain quarters towards the end of the first decade of this century (see asti for details), which resulted in an increase in plantings of Muscat even in California. The Italian vine census of 2010 identifies seven different Moscatos. Moscato Bianco, sometimes called Moscato di Canelli, is the finest Muscat grape variety muscat blanc à petits grains and is that most commonly encountered in Italy, with total plantings of 11,500 ha/28,471 acres, making it one of the country’s most planted white wine grapes, cited in almost 20 docs. This is the Moscato responsible for all the light usually sweet and sparkling wines of Asti and moscato d’asti. Moscato Rosa del Trentino (found in trentino and alto adige, often called Rosenmuskateller) is a very much rarer red-skinned grape which seems to exist in three different incarnations, of which a mutation of Moscato Bianco is only one. The golden-berried Moscato Giallo (Goldmuskateller) is more widely planted, on 1,127 ha/2,785 acres, and has a parent-offspring relationship with Moscato Bianco. Moscato di Terracina is a recently revived aromatic white grown on 125 ha/309 acres of Lazio. Moscato di Scanzo is a dark-berried speciality of Bergamo which makes small quantities of decadently aromatic, sweet passito reds. Moscato Nero di Acqui is a synonym for muscat of hamburg, as is muscat ottonel, though neither is much grown in Italy. Wines called Moscato are produced all over the country and are usually made from Moscato Bianco grapes. In the south and, especially, the islands, they are typically golden and sweet. Few of Italy’s regions do not have their own Moscato-based wines. The majority of these are low in alcohol and at least lightly sweet, ideal accompaniments to fruit and fruit-based desserts. Italy’s south, in particular sicily, was once renowned for its Moscato wines, many of them made from muscat of alexandria, more commonly known as zibibbo in Italy. The revived popularity of Moscato di Pantelleria (see sicily) in the 1980s coincided with, and perhaps influenced, new attempts to achieve a more luscious style of Moscato in Piemonte, and a new category of passito wines, far sweeter than Moscato d’Asti and frequently given barrel maturation, began to emerge in the late 1980s. Small quantities of Moscato passito have long been made in the Valle d’aosta, principally near the township of Chambave.
Asti
The sweet and fruity based spumante wines of Asti DOCG are made in significant volumes and continue to be hugely popular across the globe.
There is a seperate DOCG for a slightly sparkling wine called Muscat d’ Asti.
Location- Asti
Delineated area within the region of Piemonte (Piedmont).
Grapes can be sourced from the entire province (a subdivision of an Italian region) of Asti and part of the adjoining provinces of Alessandria to the east and Cuneo to the West.
Climate- Asti
Warm continental with cold winters but hot summers
Vineyard- Asti
All plantings must be on slopes. The soils are composed of limestone, clay and chalk.
- Yield 10 tonnes/ hectare
- Grapes must have a minimum potential alcohol of 9% abv
Grape Varieties- Asti
Moscato Blanco (Muscat Blanc a Petit Grains)
Winery- Asti
These wines can in theory be made sparkling in bottle but in reality they are usually made using a variation on the tank method
- Maximum juice yield 75L/ 100kg
Important Trade Structure- Asti
Production is made up of thousands of small growers who generally sell their grapes to large companies or co-operatives.
