#5 – 101 Australian compact facts
Muscat grapes quietly raisining in the dark.
Muscat has a rather unique & completely luscious history in Australia, it reaches its pinnacle in the region of Rutherglen in Northern Victoria. In these wines Brown Muscat or Muscat Rouge à Petits Grains, a variant of the more Muscat Blanc à Petits Grains, really comes into its own. Australian’s love to call sweet dessert style wines ‘sticky’ & these Liqueur Muscat wines gives a whole new meaning of the term.
Made with a blend of ripe & fully raisined grapes – either raisined on vine or in racks. The wine is fortified after desired level of sweetness is reached in the fermentation stage leaving a sweet wine. Then it is stored & matured in old oak barrels & casks in ‘solera’ stacks within the winery, often under hot conditions. Over time, the evaporation concentrates the wine to a syrupy rich consistency, with rich fruit cake characters that have made these wines famous enough.
Click here to read more about this region & this unique wine.
Mmmmm – Muscat. We are in the process of covering up our Muscat grapes as I speak, to protect the grapes from the many species of birds that take a liking to the sweet grape around this time of year! Picking for our Muscat is done around March, so still a bit to go yet before the grapes reach the desired sweetness to produce our “christmas pudding in a bottle”.
www. gemelliestate.com.au
Hi Bec, Thanks for dropping by. Christmas Pud in a bottle is right! I shall have to drop by and visit next time I am up in the Hunter. Good luck for the vintage! – Lisa