This post is presented by Carlos Creek Winery 
Over the past four years, I’ve been paying attention to what I’ll call an American love affair with Moscato wines.
I’ve watched as sales dramatically went up; as much as 100 percent, particularly for Italian-produced Moscatos. It reminded me of the rise of white zin years ago. And like white zin, those powering the rise of Moscato skew younger.
I’ve seen this at our tasting bar, where Moscato is the most requested wine.
So I purchased about a dozen different Moscatos and set our staff to conducting a little in-house research, which is (not surprisingly) one of our favorite winery “tasks.”
Even if sweet wines aren’t your thing, Moscato is incredibly easy to drink. We liked the peachy-apricot aroma, clean, crisp finish, and lower alcohol levels of these Moscatos, made from the Muscat grape. Most were also bubbly, which was really pleasing to our taste buds.
We can’t grow Muscat in Minnesota, but we do have plenty of cold-climate grape varieties that produce wines with peachy-apricot aromatics and a clean, crisp finish. Frontenac Gris, Frontenac Blanc, LaCrescent, and Brianna are great examples. What if, we thought, we created our own Moscato made from Minnesota grapes? Add a little fizz and a great name and we’d be able to offer our customers a Minnesota-grown alternative to Moscato.
And that’s when our specialty wine, Minnescato, was born.
You can try Minnescato, made from grapes grown right here in the Land of 10,000 Lakes, at the Minnesota Monthly Food & Wine Experience March 7-8 at Target Field.
To order a bottle of Minnescato online, or to learn more about Carlos Creek Winery (located in Alexandria), visit carloscreekwinery.com.
For tickets to the Food & Wine experience, visit foodwineshow.com.
