Moscato Rosa Wine Grape
Moscato Rosa is a red-skinned member of the Muscat family.
It is most commonly found in northeast Italy, particularly in the alpine Trentino-Alto Adige region, where it lends its name to a handful of DOC titles. Moscato Rosa is generally used to make sweet wines through a variety of means, and these are commonly highly aromatic, with notes of sweet spice, berryfruit, and rose aromas as suggested in the variety's name.
Moscato Rosa is, however, a challenge in the vineyard as its thin skins and poor fruit-set make it an extremely inconsistent variety. It is a female vine and requires pollination from other varieties, which is relatively unusual in viticulture – most varieties used in winemaking are hermaphrodites and are thus self-pollinating.
Issues arise when there are no other vines nearby to regularly pollinate, and fruit set can be quite irregular. Thin-skinned berries also make Moscato Rosa rather susceptible to rot.
These thin skins can be a blessing though. As the berries dehydrate quickly, they are very well-suited to sweet wine production, especially in the "passito" style where berries are air-dried to concentrate sugars prior to vinification.
Some producers prefer a late-harvest example of Moscato Rosa, although this often relies on vineyard sites where soils are dry and sandy, letting the grapes dry out on the vine prior to picking.