Asti Spumante is made solely with Moscato (aka Muscat Blanc), therefore it’s one of the sweetest sparkling wines in Italy.
Asti is a city and subregion of Piedmont, in the northwest of Italy. The famous sparkling wine produced here was once known as Asti Spumante, but was shortened to just Asti (probably to dump the baggage of its mass-produced past) when it became a DOC in 1994. Asti Wine. Asti is the name of a province, a town and a wine – all to be found in Piedmont, north-western Italy. The suffix d'Asti appears in the names of several wines from the Asti area, including Barbera d'Asti, Dolcetto d'Asti and of course the famous Moscato d'Asti. In Italian sparkling wine speak, Asti is spumante (4 atmospheres of pressure) while Moscato d'Asti is frizzante (1 atmosphere of pressure). Asti is packaged with thick, sturdy bottles and a wired-down cork (as per Champagne), while Moscato d’Asti's relatively low pressure requires only a standard bottle and cork. Asti Spumante is made solely with Moscato (aka Muscat Blanc), therefore it’s one of the sweetest sparkling wines in Italy. With frothy bubbles and a highly perfumed nose of Asian pear, honeysuckle and nectarine, it goes extremely well with sweet desserts and white chocolate. Spumante is simply sparkling wine.. Spumante is NOT just Asti or Asti Spumante. And it is certainly not always made with Moscato of any form. Prosecco is a sparkling wine that does not undergo second fermentation in the bottle, only in tanks which makes it cheaper and certainly not same quality. The politics are complicated, and you can get an overview of the idea at the champagne wikipedia page. Spumante, on the other hand, is a sparkling white wine from the Piedmont region of Italy. (It is also called asti or asti spumante.) It's made from the Moscato Bianco grape. More information can be found on the spumante wikipedia page. I find spumante wines to be very sweet, whereas you can purchase champagnes that are brut (dry), demi-sec (half-dry) and doux (sweet). Asti is made from the Moscato grape, and is slightly sweet. For a long while, as Asti Spumante, it was produced even sweeter on purpose, and imported pretty cheaply.
http://www.snooth.com/region/italy/piemonte/asti/asti-spumante/ http://www.wine-searcher.com/regions-asti http://www.wine-searcher.com/regions-asti http://winefolly.com/review/sparkling-italian-wine/ http://cooking.stackexchange.com/questions/32185/difference-between-spumante-champagne http://cooking.stackexchange.com/questions/32185/difference-between-spumante-champagne http://www.snooth.com/region/italy/piemonte/asti/asti-spumante/
what is spumante made from