Semi-sparkling moscato d'Asti just right for picnic

Asti Spumanti, the world's best-selling sweet sparkling wine, has a cousin that garners its own devoted followers: moscato d'Asti.

Both wines are from the Piedmont region of Italy. Both are made from the moscato or muscat grape.

But the moscato d'Asti wines usually get better grapes selected for their fermentation, and the wine is made semi-sparkling. When you look at the labels, "spumanti" means fully sparkling; "frizzante" means semi-sparkling.

The frizzante wines still will have plenty of bubbles. I expect them to be aromatic, yet delicate wines, with peach and apricot flavors.

These are easy-drinking wines with relatively lower alcohol content that make them popular for picnics or patio afternoons.

The wine-tasting group compared four Moscato d'Asti wines. Here is what we found:

- 2001 Martin & Weyrich Allegio Moscato at $11.99. This wine had an herbal aroma with honeysuckle and tangerines. In the mouth, it tasted like canned Mandarin oranges. It had some bubbles, but it lacked the acidity to put it in the top class of wines.

- 2002 Vignaioli di S. Stefano Moscato d'Asti at $18.99. This producer has been one of the premier makers of this wine in Italy, and this bottle finished second in our tasting. The pleasant aroma reminded us of sweet lavender soap and orange bubble gum. This wine had more acidity than the first we tasted, making it better balanced, and overall it was much more complex. There was nice fruit on the finish.

- 2002 Marcarini Moscato d'Asti at $14.99. This was more fizzy than the others. From the aroma to the finish, we thought of candied apples. The fruit tastes less ripe than the others. Tasters voted this their favorite.

- 2001 "Bug Juice" Rinaldi Vini Moscato d'Asti at $15.99. Yes, this is the real name of this wine -- Bug Juice. I suppose it was picked to get attention, and for us, it worked. The contents were not quite as cute as the name, though. It had an earthy smell and the finish was syrupy. One taster assigned to bring a bottle to our meeting got confused and brought a late-harvest moscato. The error is understandable.

Muscato grapes are made into many styles of wines, most of them sweet but a few dry, and wine buyers need to be careful what they select from the shelves. A grape for a late-harvest wine is taken from the vine late in the season, giving it more intense flavors and more sugar in less juice.

The group decided to sample the late harvest in our tasting as well:

- 1999 Novell Late Harvest Moscato at $9.99 for a half bottle. This aroma offered smells of canned peaches. In the mouth, it was slight tinny with the fruit not quite right with the acids. The finish was slightly bitter.

Tasters preferred the Stefano and Martin & Weyrich.

Questions can be sent to Frank Sutherland, editor, The Tennessean, 1100 Broadway, Nashville, Tenn. 37203 or e-mailed to editor