Moscato D’Asti is one of my favorite wines, very popular in Italy but is not very prevalent the American market. A variation of Muscat grapes, which are used to make dessert wines, Moscato is sweet and lightly bubbly. The flavors are light and fruity. This particular label is available at the World Market, which sells a couple labels of this wine as well as a Moscato Allegro (that I want to try soon).

Because this wine is fresh and bubbly, it can be served in dessert wine glasses or champagne flutes. I enjoy this wine on its own, but it can be stand up to most sweet desserts. In general, your wine should be slightly sweeter than the dessert, but most wine rules were made to be broken.

It’s no secret that I love tea and coffee, but I also have a great love of wine. My tastes are far from sophisticated, I prefer sweet to dry and white to red, but I am excited about trying new wines and discovering new tastes. In this spirit, I bring you my latest special project: Winter Winery. All winter long, I will sample new wines and review them on my website.

A wine snob I am not, and while it sounds nice to sit down to a glass of merlot, this probably isn’t going to happen. Occasionally, I will splurge on expensive wine, but most bottles I buy tend to run in the $10-12 range. The most I have spent on a single bottle is less than $25, and it really wasn’t worth it. My basic rule is more than $5 and less than $20 (though my favorite sangria barely makes the cut at $5.99 a bottle).