Muscatel ( ) may refer to any type of

wine Wine is an alcoholic drink made from Fermentation in winemaking, fermented fruit. Yeast in winemaking, Yeast consumes the sugar in the fruit and converts it to ethanol and carbon dioxide, releasing heat in the process. Wine is most often made f ...

made from muscat grapes. In the United States, however, “muscatel” normally refers only to fortified wine made from these grapes. Fortified muscatel became popular in the United States at the end of

Prohibition Prohibition is the act or practice of forbidding something by law; more particularly the term refers to the banning of the manufacture, storage (whether in barrels or in bottles), transportation, sale, possession, and consumption of alcoholic b ...

, when, in order to meet the sudden surge in demand for wine, some inferior strains of muscat grapes (normally sold as table grapes or made into raisins) were mixed with sugar and cheap brandy to produce what came to be pejoratively referred to as “ wino wine.” As a result, the label “muscatel” became associated in the U.S. with inferior-quality wine, so that today in that country, fine wines made from superior strains of muscat grapes tend not to be called “muscatel.” However, outside the U.S., “muscatel” (sometimes spelled “moscatel”) refers to the full range of wines made with muscat grapes. In 16th-century Germany, “muscatel” was also the term for Rhine wines to which

elderflower ''Sambucus'' is a genus of between 20 and 30 species of flowering plants in the family Adoxaceae. The various species are commonly referred to as elder, with the flowers as elderflower, and the fruit as elderberry. Description Elders are mostl ...

-infused '' Salvia sclarea'' had been added to make a more potent beverage. The varietal of the plant used in this concoction thus acquired the common name, "muscatel sage".Rodale's Illustrated Encyclopedia of Herbs
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References

Fortified wine {{wine-stub

See also

References