Muscatel

for the place in California see Muscatel, California

Muscatel is a type wine made from muscat grapes. The term is now normally used in the US to refer to a fortified wine made from these grapes rather than just any wine made from these grapes. This fortified muscatel became popular in the US when, at the end of prohibition, in order to meet the large demand for wine, some poor strains of muscat grapes (used normally for table grapes or raisins) mixed with sugar and cheap brandy were used to produce what has since become infamous as a wino wine. This kind of fortified wine has, in the US, damaged the reputation of all muscat based wines and the term muscatel tends no longer to be used for these "better" wines in the US.^[1] In other markets the term Muscatel, or Moscatel, refers to a wide range of sweet wines based on these grapes.

References

1. Hailman, John R. (2009) Thomas Jefferson on Wine, University Press of Mississippi