Muscatel Comes Out of the Paper Bag and Into Polite Society at Tasting

When I said I was going to a Muscatel tasting, a friend jokingly asked if it was going to be held in a doorway. Out of bottles with screw caps, consumed straight from brown paper bags.

That’s the reputation Muscatel has, and rightfully so. In California, Muscatel has been made from the Muscat grape, which has a naturally high floral aroma. The resulting fortified wine usually was made very sweet, and was sold in bottles small enough to permit purchase by Skid Row transients who could accumulate a few pennies.

Indeed, such wine may have led to creation of the term wino as a reference to all alcoholics, even those who used grain alcohol, beer or gin for their belt. (Today it is common to hear of residents, worried about alcoholism in their neighborhoods, railing against the winos, even though the word alcoholics would be more precise.)

Muscatel, because it was inexpensive and sweet, always was thought of as a wine worthy only of a fast buzz, intended for a swig out of a bag by a derelict.

So it was intriguing for me two weeks ago when I received an invitation from Roy Brady to attend a Muscatel tasting. Brady, a dedicated wine collector, wine book lover and wine writer, didn’t intend to stage this tasting in an alley, however, but in his Northridge home.

Some for Less Than a Buck

Most of the wines on the menu were not all former Skid Row products, though a few were originally made to be sold for less than a dollar a bottle.

Attending this event were some knowledgeable wine lovers including Jim Ahern of Ahern Winery, Steve Wallace of Wally’s in Westwood, Ardison Phillips of the Studio Grill in Hollywood, writer Coleman Andrews and Darrell Corti, the Sacramento wine merchant who probably knows more about such fortified wines than anyone.

These wines typically were made by fermenting Muscat of Alexandria grape juice and adding brandy to stop the fermentation while some residual sugar remained. The resulting wine was then placed in barrels for additional aging. In some countries, the aging is very long, perhaps decades. In some countries, these wines are called Vin Doux Naturel, or VDN for short.

Brady, who has a marvelously eclectic wine cellar, had stashed a number of bottles of Muscatel during the last few decades, largely to see if they would age. Some were expensive, others were inexpensive. He admits he was fascinated that so many of the inexpensive Muscatels made in the 1940s and 1950s and intended to be consumed then (some had screw caps) seemed to have aging potential.

The Wino’s Wine

“It was nothing more than instinct,” said Brady about his decision to cellar the inexpensive wines. “I thought that it (Muscatel) had potential (to improve). The fact that it was the wino’s wine didn’t mean anything to me.

“There were, after all, famous Muscatels like Setubal. I wish now that I had put more of them down, especially since they have become extinct.”

Brady is right: very few wineries in California still make Muscatel, although it was a staple in California in the years following the end of Prohibition. And shockingly, of the older wines we tasted from the cellars of Brady, Corti and others, most were much improved for the long time they had had in the bottle.

A prototype of this kind of wine was from Ferrara Winery in Escondido, designated California Nectar de Luz, and further illuminated by the phrase “Choice Dessert Wine.” Brady said he had bought the bottle in 1970.

“This was an expensive wine back then,” said Brady. “It was pushing a buck and a half.”

The aroma of this now-brown wine was amazingly intense, with a burnt caramel, vanilla/chocolate aroma--one taster said it was like ice cream topping, only much better--and a silky, smooth, very sweet taste that finished like toasted nuts.

“This was very typical, obvious wine when it was bought,” said Brady. But the 18 years in a bottle had brought about an amazing transformation, he said, giving the wine much more richness and complexity.

Very Enjoyable

Other California Muscatels tasted included California Muscatel from Louis Martini (no longer produced); California Muscatel from Val-Moon Winery in Glen Ellen (no longer produced); California Choice Muscatel from Paul Masson (no longer produced); Black Muscat from Novitiate of Los Gatos (winery defunct), and Concannon Muscat de Frontignan, a limited bottling produced only once and bottled in 1967.

All but the Val-Moon and Novitiate were very enjoyable and Brady noted that most had improved with time in the bottle. In particular, the amazingly fine Concannon had acquired a most complex set of aromas combining the Muscat fruit from the grapes, more intriguing aromas from the brandy, and still more amazing scents from the long time in bottle. As we sipped the wine over two hours, it continued to improve in the glass.

Corti said the brandy used to fortify the Concannon wine was actually distilled from Muscat grapes, adding to the complex elements in the wine. Only 268 cases of this wine were made and it reportedly didn’t sell very well. If you find a bottle, dusty and lonely, lurking in some old wine shop, grab it.

Also greatly admired by the tasters was a Cossart, Gordon Old Muscatel Madiera, bottled prior to 1930--a wine with a more Sherryish sort of complexity with nuttiness and a slight charred paper note.

The best wines of the tasting were rare examples of Muscatel made in the classical tradition.

My favorite was Moscatel Velho de Torna-Viagem, a Muscatel de Setubal, from the Portuguese house of J. M. da Fonseca. Corti, who acquired this rare bottle at an auction in England, said it was bottled after the cask in which the wine was aged was shipped to Brazil and then back to Portugal. The belief was that the ocean voyage helped the wine develop character.

This Setubal was amazingly concentrated in flavor, with a rich, chocolaty, vanilla bean and spice character, and a consistency was so dense it looked like motor oil.

Two wines that tied for the most total votes by the tasters were Moscatel 1870 from the Spanish Sherry producer Osborne and a Muscatel Reserve 1900 from Avery of England. Corti contributed the Osborne, a wine he once imported and sold for less than $20.

‘Lafite Was Selling for $5’

The Avery wine, which was bottled in 1935 after many years in a cask, was from Brady’s cellar, and he said he bought the wine in 1959. Brady said he paid $7.70 for the wine--”at a time when a bottle of Lafite was selling for $5.”

Before we opened the bottle, Brady said, “Ronald Avery would let me have only one bottle and told me, ‘It will become a very fine wine if any of us lives long enough.’ Let us hope that 29 years has been long enough.”

The wine was lighter than a few on the table, but was amazingly complex, deep and rich, with marvelous “old world” flavors of caramel, roasted pecans and a faint whiff of an unnamed spice. Others who felt the Osborne wine was better favored its slightly spicier, more unctuous flavors.

In the 1950s, more dessert wine was produced and sold in California than table wine and during that heyday for sweeter wines, a number of wineries made Muscatel. Some of them were good wines that merely needed lots of age for the brandy and the wine to blend and grow complex. Yet few consumers aged the wines, so few ever knew of the joys they could provide.

As table wine took over the market and dessert wines lost favor, Muscatel was dropped. One reason, clearly, was the image it had acquired as the wino’s wine. Also, even wine makers didn’t realize what a grand treat a great old well-aged Muscatel could be.

Beaulieu Vineyard in the Napa Valley has long produced a fine Muscat de Frontignan, made in a style similar to the other wines we tasted two weeks ago. It is made entirely from the Muscat de Frontignan grape and fermented until it has about 8% residual sugar. Then the fermentation is stopped by adding brandy, and the resulting wine, which has about 18% alcohol, is aged in barrels. The average age of the wine now being sold is 10 years, according to Tom Selfridge, wine master. It is a fine, sweet, complex wine that sells for $4 for a half bottle, a steal.

Ferrara in Escondido still makes its Nectar de Luz, which contains a small percentage of very old, well-aged family stock that has been around the winery more than 50 years. George Ferrara said the new bottling will go on sale later this month at $9 a bottle. It is available only at the winery (1120 W. 15th Ave.). To order the wine by mail, call the winery at (619) 745-7632.

San Antonio Winery in Los Angeles also makes a fine Muscatel, a wine made entirely from the Muscat of Alexandria grape, but all of it is altar wine and sold only to churches. Since San Antonio has won numerous awards for its Madeira and Marsala, I asked the winery why it couldn’t make a small amount of Muscatel available to the public.

San Antonio vice president Santo Riboli said the thought had never occurred to him, but to test the market for such a product, he has agreed to bottle up 20 cases of a special Muscatel-type wine to sell at the tasting room only, with a handwritten label.

Public’s Lack of Interest Cited

To be called Muscat Ancien Cask 1, the wine will be a blend of the Muscat of Alexandria and Muscat de Frontignan varieties, fortified with brandy and aged in oak for more than a decade. It will sell for $8 a bottle.

After our tasting was over, a number of tasters commented on the greatness of Muscatel, said they were saddened by the fact that so few California wineries still make it, and applauded Corti as one of the few who still imports such rare products from overseas.

Then Corti admitted he may soon stop importing such rare wines because of the public’s lack of interest in them.

To which Phillips of the Studio Grill suggested that a Fortified Wine Society be formed to explore supporting Muscatel, Sherry and other such rare and exotic dessert wines. Corti said he’d join such a group if it were formed. Discussions are proceeding.

Wine of the Week: 1987 Quady Essensia ($11.50)--This wine is made from the rare Orange Muscat grape, and like Muscatel, is fortified with a bit of brandy. It always offers a complex aroma that is more orange-peel than Muscat-like. The 1987 is more aromatic and spicy than some in the past. Wine maker Andrew Quady said he doesn’t recommend this wine be aged for very long, “but some people do like the way it ages. However, it does become a different wine totally.” Essensia has been made only since 1980, so there is no way to know what long-term aging will do for it.