Moscato di Terracina is a DOC of the Lazio wine region in central western Italy. Created in May 2007 and revised exactly one year later, the title is used for the white Moscato wines produced along the Ulysses Coast here in southern Lazio.
Terracina lies at the southern end of the Agro Pontine (Pontine Plain) – an area of former marshland covering almost 200,000 acres (80,000ha) and drained by the Mussolini government in the 1920s. Futher north on the plain are the Aprilia and Circeo DOCs.
The communes of Monte San Biagio, Sonnino and Terracina itself are those sanctioned to produce Moscato di Terracina wines, the finest of which come from vineyards on the south-east-facing slopes of the coastal hills. The topography is dramatic: peaks rise to almost 3000ft (915m) within just a few miles of the coast.
As may be obvious from the title, Moscato di Terracina wines are produced from white Muscat grapes, in this case the local Moscato di Terracina variant of this broad-ranging vine family. The grapes may be made into five different styles of wine, from still, dry wines (secco) to sweet, sparkling wines (spumante dolce) and intensely flavored, deep-hued passito wines made from dried grapes. It is not clear which of these styles was used by the divine enchantress Circe, whose name is reflected in various landmarks and geographical features of the area (including the Circeo DOC mentioned above), to keep Ulysses and his men on her island for a full year.
