Quady Elysium Black Muscat 2023 (37.5cl)
£12.95
The wine
Elysium is a brilliant crimson purple colour with aromas of ripe berries, rose petals, strawberries and lychees. The vibrant acidity balances beautifully with the sweetness of this wine, making it very refreshing.
Black Muscat, properly Muscat Hamburg, is a crossing of Schiava and Muscat of Alexandria and is normally eaten as a table grape rather than made into wine. Its rose petal and lychee perfume is unmistakable, and sweet red Muscat is rare enough that this has few comparisons anywhere. Excellent with chocolate, which defeats most dessert wines.
The producer
Quady
View all Quady winesAndrew Quady changed career from making fireworks to making wine, and the switch produced an explosion of a different kind when he created Essensia from Orange Muscat. It was an instant success and for years he could not make enough of it.
Quady is now the foremost American winery specialising entirely in dessert and aperitif wines, which is a rare thing anywhere: almost every producer treats sweet wine as a sideline. The first port-style wine came in 1975 from Amador County Zinfandel and is now made from traditional Portuguese varieties, and the Vya vermouths brought serious aromatised wine back to American bars at a time when vermouth was an afterthought.
The winery is at Madera in the San Joaquin Valley, hot, dry country where grapes reach the high sugars these styles need. Orange Muscat and Black Muscat are both rarities: aromatic members of the enormous Muscat family, grown almost nowhere else in any quantity.
