page_title: Asti wine
section_title: History
hierarchical_section_title: Asti wine / History
caption_attribution_description: Moscato Bianco grapes (pre-veraison) growing in the Piedmont wine region of Italy
context_page_description: Asti is a sparkling white Italian wine that is produced throughout southeastern Piedmont but is particularly focused around the towns of Asti and Alba. Since 1993 the wine has been classified as a Denominazione di Origine Controllata e Garantita and as of 2004 was Italy's largest producing appellation. On an average vintage more than ten times as much Asti is produced in Piedmont than the more well-known Piedmontese red wine Barolo.
  Made from the Moscato Bianco grape, it is sweet and low in alcohol, and often served with dessert. Unlike Champagne, Asti is not made sparkling through the use of secondary fermentation in the bottle but rather through a single tank fermentation utilizing the Charmat method. It retains its sweetness through a complex filtration process. Another wine called Moscato d'Asti is made in the same region from the same grape, but is only slightly sparkling and tends to have even lower alcohol.
  On 22 June 2014, Vineyard Landscape of Piedmont: Langhe-Roero and Monferrato was declared a UNESCO World Heritage Site.
context_section_description: The Moscato Bianco grape (also known as Muscat Blanc à Petits Grains) has long been found in the Piedmont and, along with Nebbiolo, may be one of the oldest grapes in the region. However, the production of sparkling Asti from Moscato Bianco is a relatively recent product. The first sparkling Asti is believed to have been produced around 1870 by Carlo Gancia who studied the Champagne method used to produce the notable wine in the Champagne wine region of France. Producing his wine in the town of Canelli along the river Belbo, the wine grew in such popularity that Moscato Bianco developed the synonym of Muscat Canelli that is still seen on wine labels today.
  After World War II, Asti saw an uptick in popularity in the United States as returning soldiers from the war brought their taste for the light, sweet wine home with them. The increasing demand saw many producers turn to bulk wine production using the Charmat method, which makes the wine sparkling through a closed fermentation in a tank rather than a secondary fermentation the individual bottle as in  Champagne and Cava. The large amounts of exported Asti (then known as Asti Spumante) that hit the export market (to both the United States as well as the United Kingdom) garnered a poor reputation for being what wine expert Karen MacNeil describes as "a noxiously sweet poor man's Champagne."
  Remnants of this reputation remained attached to the name Asti Spumante for much of the 20th century. When the wine was promoted to DOCG status in 1993, producers sought to distinguish themselves from that reputation and dropped the use of Spumante altogether in favor of the shortened Asti name. Along with the name change came a change in style, with several producers creating more modern styles of Asti that are less sweet and have more ripe fruit flavors.
caption: Moscato bianco grapes (pre-veraison)
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