Moscatel

Primarily, this term is associated with the name of a grape variety. In fact, it is a generic term for various subspecies, crossbreed, or new breed involving Muscat and not infrequently unrelated grape varieties. Therefore, one cannot speak of a variety group and certainly not a Muscat family (the same phenomenon applies to the four name groups Lambrusco, Malvasia, Trebbiano, and Vernaccia). There are Muscat varieties with berries in all conceivable color from white, yellow, gray, green, pink, red, brown, violet, blue, and black.

Origin & Ancestry

According to one of the numerous hypotheses, the variety was already known to the Egyptians and Persians around 3000 BC, for which wall paintings are sometimes cited as evidence. However, there is a lack of any conclusive evidence, as identification is of course not possible with such pictorial representations.

The ancestry (parentage) is unknown, presumably the parent varieties are already extinct. The Mediterranean region (probably Greece or Italy) is considered the likely origin. This is supported by the fact that in both countries there are descendants and familial relationships to other varieties.

Thus, it may have been brought to Europe by the Greeks and spread by the Romans in their dominion. Allegedly, the emperors Charlemagne (742-814) and...