Malvasia

Malvasia is not one grape but an ancient, sprawling family of Mediterranean varieties — mostly white and famously aromatic — whose name has echoed through wine history since the Middle Ages. The classic Malvasia is a perfumed white of peach, apricot and orange blossom, honeyed and slightly musky, made across every register: crisp and bone-dry, off-dry and floral, lusciously sweet from sun-dried grapes, and richly fortified. Grown from Greece and the Aegean through Italy, Croatia, Iberia and the wine islands of the Atlantic, it lends its name to the historic "Malmsey" of Madeira and to some of the oldest branded wines in Europe. Fragrant, generous and endlessly varied, Malvasia is one of the great aromatic signatures of the Mediterranean.