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.
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.
![]()
For my many years of work as an editor with a wine and culinary focus, I always like to inform myself about special questions at Wine lexicon. Spontaneous reading and following links often leads to exciting discoveries in the wide world of wine.
Dr. Christa Hanten
Fachjournalistin, Lektorin und Verkosterin, Wien