Limited edition “passito” rosé dessert wine made from Moscato Rosa in the Dolomite Alps. Flavours of pomegranate, strawberry jam and mulled wine spices.

Ushas is a late harvest sweet wine, made from the grape Moscato Rosa – known as Rosenmuskateller in Alto Adige. With its aromas of blood orange marmalade and strawberry preserve, Ushas is one of the most delicious dessert wines we’ve tried. It’s also very rare, with limited availability even in Italy: the harvests of Moscato Rosa are tiny, and every bottle is numbered.

Moscato Rosa is a very challenging grape to grow. It takes lot of manual labour, and only ten hectares are planted in the whole of Alto Adige. When it blooms, all flowers are female so they don’t self-pollinate like most other grapes. As a result, the vines form a much smaller number of berries, and the harvests are trifling. But the resulting black Moscato grape, bursting with concentrated flavours of rose petals and strawberries, is well worth the effort.

Winemaking

This wine is made in the “passito” method, from grapes that are dried until they almost become raisins. The usual harvest for Moscato takes place at the end of September. For this wine, the grapes are left to dry on the vines until November. Then, they are picked and dried in the winery for another month. By the end of the drying process, the grapes lose 2/3 of their mass and the sugars and flavours become very concentrated.

Once dried, the raisin-like grapes are crushed and fermented in stainless steel tanks. They spend the first week in contact with the skins to pick flavours and texture. Then, the skins are removed and the wine ferments for three more weeks to reach the right level of alcohol. At that point there’s still a lot of residual sugar left so the wine feels lusciously sweet. Ushas is then aged for ten months in four year old 225-litre French oak barriques.

Tasting notes

Medium garnet colour. Aromas of fresh pomegranate, violet, hibiscus tea, blood orange marmalade, strawberry jam, dates and mulled wine spices. In the mouth, Ushas Rosenmuskateller offers high acidity, a creamy viscous texture, silky tannins, a medium body and medium alcohol. Long, captivating finish.

Awards

The WineHunter 2020 – Rosso (2017 vintage) | Falstaff – 92 pts (2017 vintage) | I Vini di Veronelli – 3 stars (2016 vintage)