Domaine des Bernardins Muscat Beaumes de Venise / 2025 / 375mL

Description:

The Domaine des Bernardins Muscat de Beaumes de Venise 2025 is a sweet fortified Muscat from the Southern Rhône Valley, poured cold in small glasses and built on orange blossom, apricot and grape rather than sheer sugar. In a 375mL bottle it is sized for a table of four at the end of a long lunch, without a half-empty bottle left over.

Rose petal and dried apricot lead, then candied citrus peel, melon and a whiff of muscat grape skin. The 2025 season brought steady winter and spring rain followed by heat waves in late June and mid-August, and the wine carries that combination well: ripe, perfumed fruit with the aromatic lift intact.

Sweetness arrives generously but never sits still, cut by a citrus-pith line that keeps the finish clean and long. Texture is silky rather than syrupy, and the fortifying spirit shows as warmth through the back palate instead of heat.

Serve it well chilled with apricot tart, crème brûlée, poached stone fruit or a wedge of Roquefort. It also does good work alongside foie gras, or simply on its own after dinner in place of dessert.

Drinking beautifully now and through the next five years or so, though bear in mind a half bottle ages faster than a 750mL, so this format rewards drinking on the earlier side.