by Patrick Ogle
Muscadine Gold from Georgia Winery seems to be a typical example of the wine produced from this native American grape. Just the nose tells you know this isnt a European grape. This is a type of grape and wine that takes some getting used to. Is it bad? It is hard to say that but it is certainly different. This version of muscadine is sweet as can be but it lacks that wet dog (I prefer that to calling it "foxy" we all know wet dogs, what does foxy mean). Or it only has some of that wet dogginess. This is perfectly pleasant wine but it doesn't have the complex notes you get from desert wines made with European grapes. It tastes like white grape juice with a bit of honey.
But there is something most of us wine drinkers will find unpleasant about muscadine wine. A sip tastes fine but a glass can be hard to drink (one exception being a Tennessee wine I tried awhile ago) and a bottle seems close to impossible. Criticizing muscadine wine and being snobby about it is sort of like shooting fish in a barrel. Everyone who is a wine drinker sneers at it but there is a reason for that. It just doesn't appeal to the palates of most wine drinkers.
Just to be clear , when I talk about European grapes I don't mean grapes grown in Europe but grapes that have their origin on that continent. Pretty much every wine you can think of is made from those grapes. American grapes have a bad reputation but some of them can produce good, even age-worthy, wines, norton, for instance (Georgia Winery makes a decent norton).
Muscadine is probably not one of the grapes that will make wines that appeal to most wine drinkers. Who knows though? Maybe there will some genius winemaker who changes this.
What if the phyloxera epidemic had wiped out European grapes? We might have developed a taste for this sort of wine but right now it seems like it is something of a regional curiosity.
Muscadine Gold from Georgia Winery seems to be a typical example of the wine produced from this native American grape. Just the nose tells you know this isnt a European grape. This is a type of grape and wine that takes some getting used to. Is it bad? It is hard to say that but it is certainly different. This version of muscadine is sweet as can be but it lacks that wet dog (I prefer that to calling it "foxy" we all know wet dogs, what does foxy mean). Or it only has some of that wet dogginess. This is perfectly pleasant wine but it doesn't have the complex notes you get from desert wines made with European grapes. It tastes like white grape juice with a bit of honey.
But there is something most of us wine drinkers will find unpleasant about muscadine wine. A sip tastes fine but a glass can be hard to drink (one exception being a Tennessee wine I tried awhile ago) and a bottle seems close to impossible. Criticizing muscadine wine and being snobby about it is sort of like shooting fish in a barrel. Everyone who is a wine drinker sneers at it but there is a reason for that. It just doesn't appeal to the palates of most wine drinkers.
Just to be clear , when I talk about European grapes I don't mean grapes grown in Europe but grapes that have their origin on that continent. Pretty much every wine you can think of is made from those grapes. American grapes have a bad reputation but some of them can produce good, even age-worthy, wines, norton, for instance (Georgia Winery makes a decent norton).
Muscadine is probably not one of the grapes that will make wines that appeal to most wine drinkers. Who knows though? Maybe there will some genius winemaker who changes this.
What if the phyloxera epidemic had wiped out European grapes? We might have developed a taste for this sort of wine but right now it seems like it is something of a regional curiosity.
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