Today’s Italian Indigenous Variety is called Moscato di Scanzo. It hails from the area around Bergamo. The city of Bergamo has been a favorite of mine since I first visited it in 1998. I wrote a long post about the city some years ago that you can read here.

Today’s post though is about Moscato di Scanzo, a Denominazione di Origine Controllata e Garantita (D.O.C.G.) wine from Lombardy made from the Moscato di Scanzo grape. Apparently it has been in the area since the 1300s. A red grape, it is thought to have been brought to the area by the Romans. It makes sweet wines that are rich and filled with floral notes of roses and violets. The wines are left to dry either in small boxes or on “graticci” – wooden slats for a minimum of 21 days. After pressing, the wine spend two years in stainless steel and then in the bottle for a number of years.

There is a Consortium of wine producers from this region that was created in 1993, following on the heels of a previous association of producers that was created in the 1970s. The wine got its D.O.C.G. status in April 2009. According to the Consortium’s website, Julius Caesar had a military command post in the area of Scanzo and Moscato di Scanzo was the first Italian wine to be listed on the London exchange. Apparently, the British Royal Family still has a link to one of the producers of this interesting wine. This is the smallest D.O.C.G. in Italy with only 31 hectares under vine.

The wine is deep, ruby red in color with delicious notes of cherries “sotto spirito/marinated with alcohol and spice. I thought it was a very sexy wine and unique. I am partial to sweet wines but this wasn’t over the top and I liked that too. One of the wines I have tried was from Azienda Agricola Fejoia.  This was the first Moscato di Scanzo that I tried years ago at Vinitaly. It certainly won’t be the last.