Muscat Grape

Note Profile

Botanical

About

Muscat grape is the smell of the Muscat family of wine grapes - Muscat of Alexandria, Moscato Bianco and their relatives. Unlike table grape it is not a sugar-and-candy smell. Its character comes from free monoterpenes, so it reads floral first and fruity second.

Scent Profile

Floral leads, and three independent sources put it there rather than in the fruit bowl. The wine-writing source reaches straight for rose petals, which the geraniol content justifies. Fruity is close behind and is the ripe-grape body the floral sits on - this is still recognisably a grape. White_floral is the orange blossom and honeysuckle named in the same comparison, a narcotic edge on top of the plain floral. Honeyed is asserted as a real facet, not a synonym for sweetness: 'nuances of honey, dried fruits, and nuts'. Citrus comes from the nerol and citronellol and from the citrus peel named alongside the flowers. Below the line sit a soft sweet_vanillic, a terpenic aromatic_herbal from the alpha-terpineol, a light boozy tilt from the wine-grape context, a trace of warm spice and a dried-fruit nuttiness.

ScentWheel

Breadthbroad

EnvelopeHeart · ~4h lasting

Family Floral, Fruity

Read off the wheel, not a label applied to the note.

Origin

Vitis vinifera, the Muscat cultivar group. A candidate-gene study of grapevine flavour (PMC3095323) puts intensely muscat-flavoured cultivars in a class of their own, with free monoterpene concentration as high as 6 mg/l against 1-4 mg/l for merely aromatic varieties and near nothing for neutral ones such as Chardonnay and Cabernet-Sauvignon. Linalool, geraniol, nerol, citronellol and alpha-terpineol are named as the major aromatic determinants.

Usage in Perfumery

No perfumery house sells a material called muscat grape. It is built as an accord, and the terpenes above are the shortest route to it. Parfumo files the note inside its Wine grape taxonomy rather than under plain Grape. Attested on 10 Parfumo perfumes across 6 brands.