Muscadelle is the famous also-ran third grape variety responsible, with sémillon and sauvignon blanc, for the sweet white (and duller dry white) wines of Bordeaux. By 2011 France’s total plantings had fallen to 1,554 ha/3,838 acres, 857 ha of them in the Gironde, where the majority of Muscadelle vines are not in the great sweet white wine areas of sauternes, but in the unfashionable and vast entre-deux-mers, including the fringe sweet white appellations as premières côtes de bordeaux, cadillac, loupiac, and ste-croix-du-mont. Muscadelle is relatively more important to bergerac than to Bordeaux and it is valued as the finest ingredient in some of the best monbazillac.
