If you've cruised the "other whites" section of big box wine retailers and supermarkets lately, you can't fail to have noticed a surge in popularity of "off dry" (read "sweet") wines, especially moscato. Honestly, this is not a great food wine, but it makes a perfectly agreeable aperitif or dessert wine. At most we would pair it with a very mild cheese like Brie after dinner, although some would make a case for drinking it with spicy Asian fare, too.
A very likable and purist iteration of this fragrant white is the 2010 Moscato Allegro (about $11), which is cold-fermented by California's Martin & Weyrich Winery exclusively from muscat canelli grapes. It offers a nose of honeyed peaches, which are joined on the tongue by apricots, pure honey and a little butterfly kiss of lemon. To call it fruit forward would be an understatement, and it most certainly is sweet, but in the end it drinks cleaner and crisper than we expected.
Bottom line: This one is for those of you — and there a lot of you out there — with an insatiable sweet tooth.
By Colette and John Bancroft. She is the Times' book editor, and he is a freelance writer specializing in food, wine and travel. For an index and archive of reviews, go to pictograph.com.
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