Stylistically, as a table wine, Muscat / Moscato can either be lean, high-acid, high-perfume and bone dry or full-bodied, viscous, and honeyed with a pronounced dried fruit character. It can be made into sparkling wine which can mirror either one of the flavor profiles previously described, or it can be made into fortified wine, where it assumes another dimension completely. When fortified, all aromas and flavors are heightened and magnified.
There is a heady perfume with pronounced grapiness in every one of Muscat’s incarnations: still, sparkling, table or dessert wine. Muscat is a grape cluster in liquid form. It, like Riesling, is all about balance. Searing acid levels need sugar and/or fruit to act as foil to an otherwise austere product.
High extract, high acid, and high alcohol equates to long-lived wines with intense flavors that will develop over time.
