Des Passito - Muscato Bianco

I make no apologies for the appalling pun! But really everything about passito wines happens at a slower pace - so the project name fits…

Passito wines are commonly seen across all areas of Italian winemaking and is by the classical definition a dessert wine. That being said it is also not uncommon to consume passito wines with Parmigiano Reggiano for aperitivo - at least in Emilia-Romagna indeed it is from here that we get the inspiration for this wine.

Throughout our time in Piacenza we constantly had the opportunity to sample passito wines coming from stunning aromatic varietals such as Malvasia di Candia Aromatica (MdCA), Malvasia Rosa (a somatic mutation of MdCA), Muscato Bianco and several others.

In i vini passiti, I love an Italian pluralisation, the grapes are dried so as to concentrate their sugars - sometimes losing up to 75% weight. There are also several methods that can be employed to desiccate the grapes from leaving the grapes on the vines, drying them in the sun on mats, suspending them from string. We will be employing a fruttaio, effectively a room with a controlled temperature and humidity which allows for the slow dehydration of the grapes, thus preserving the all important aroma compounds.

We are aiming for a wine which exhibits all of the aromatic nature of the Muscato Bianco grape so expect a sweet but tangy wine with floral notes of orange blossom and honey suckle. These flowers will be backed up with spice: sweet vanilla and cloves but also fruits: apricot jam, honey, dried mango, lemon curd and pineapple.