Muscat de Beaumes-de-Venise

Muscat de Beaumes-de-Venise is the classic vin doux naturel of the Southern Rhône — a fortified sweet white wine made from Muscat grapes grown around the village of Beaumes-de-Venise, in the shadow of the Dentelles de Montmirail in France's Vaucluse. It is a "naturally sweet wine" in the French sense: partway through fermentation the winemaker adds neutral grape spirit, which stops the yeast and locks in a generous ribbon of the grape's own unfermented sugar. The result is a luminous pale-gold to amber wine of roughly 15 to 16 percent alcohol that smells and tastes intensely of the fresh grape itself — muscat grapes, orange blossom and honeysuckle, apricot, honey and candied citrus. Poured cool in a small glass, it is one of France's great dessert wines, served with fruit tarts, blue cheese, foie gras or simply on its own as a sweet apéritif.