Very likely the oldest grape in this encyclopedia. The perfumed vine the Greeks called anathelicon moschaton was carried to every shore of the Mediterranean in antiquity, and Muscat Blanc à Petits Grains has been scenting wines ever since. It holds a curious distinction: alone among the great varieties, its wine actually tastes of the fruit itself — fresh grape, orange blossom, musk.
Few grapes wear so many costumes. It is the gentle fizz of Moscato d'Asti, the golden vins doux naturels of Beaumes-de-Venise and Rivesaltes, the black-amber stickies of Rutherglen in Australia, the nectars of Samos and the fabled Constantia of the Cape. Sweet almost everywhere, yet always recognisably itself — antiquity's perfume, still uncorked.