Why does Moscatel de Setúbal taste like that?

Characteristically very low tannin, medium-minus acidity and medium-full body. Commonly associated with orange peel, grape, honeysuckle, raisin.

Not claiming: That every wine from this variety shows these characteristics. This is the range across the category, and site and winemaking move wines within and beyond it.

Warmer growing seasons are associated with faster sugar accumulation and lower retained acidity, so fruit reaches a given potential alcohol earlier in the season.

Varies: Above the vine’s photosynthetic optimum the relationship reverses: extreme heat stalls ripening, inhibits anthocyanin synthesis and can raise sugar only through berry dehydration.

Not claiming: That warm regions necessarily make high-alcohol wine. Potential alcohol at any moment is a choice point; the producer decides when to pick.

A Mediterranean pattern of wet winters and dry summers is associated with reliable ripening and with mild late-season water stress, which restricts berry size and raises the ratio of skin to juice.

Varies: Where the dry season is severe or lengthening, the same pattern produces damaging rather than beneficial stress, and irrigation becomes necessary rather than optional.

Not claiming: That water stress is beneficial as such. Mild stress helps; severe stress halts ripening.

Fermenting white grapes on their skins extracts phenolics that white winemaking normally removes, giving orange wine measurable tannin and a deeper colour.

Not claiming: That all Georgian wine is made this way, or that skin contact implies a qvevri.

Adding spirit raises alcohol above the level yeast can tolerate. Added during fermentation it halts the process, leaving unfermented grape sugar in the wine — which is why Port is sweet. Added after fermentation has finished, the wine remains as dry as it already was, which is the Sherry case.

Varies: Timing is the whole variable. The same operation on the same wine a week apart produces a sweet fortified wine or a dry one.

Not claiming: That fortification produces sweetness. It produces sweetness only when it interrupts a fermentation that still has sugar to work on.

Decades. Setúbal Moscatel spends long periods in cask, often with skins, and the older bottlings — twenty and forty years — are sold at the age they carry rather than laid down.

Not claiming: That a wine of this style will develop these characters. Ageing potential varies by producer, vintage and storage, and most wine is better young.