DOC Sweet

Planeta Passito di Noto

Planeta
Grape
Moscato
Denomination
Noto DOC
Region
Sicily
ABV
12%
Drink
Now to 2041

Planeta's Sicilian dessert wine: 100% Moscato Bianco from Noto, dried five weeks then fermented sweet. Apricot, chestnut honey, rose and candied orange in a rich 50cl half-bottle, a benchmark passito for almond pastries, cassata and blue cheese.

Best price
£33.60

75cl · checked 25 Oct · Delivery £9.99, or £14.99 for 3+ bottles, free on 6 bottles

Prices read daily from 5 UK retailers. We earn a commission on some links; it never changes the order.

Where to buy Passito di Noto

£33.60 best price · 5 retailers in stock · checked 25 Oct 2026

Stock is shown where the retailer publishes it, offers are sorted by price, and unavailable offers can’t be clicked.

XtraWine Best price 2025 · 50cl · checked 25 Oct · Delivery charge shown at checkout
Read from the retailer's page once a day. Confidence is low, so treat it as a guide and confirm at the retailer.
£26.00 £52.00/L
Great Wines Direct Best price 2025 · 50cl · checked 25 Oct · Delivery £7.95, min 6 bottles
Read from the retailer's page once a day. Confidence is low, so treat it as a guide and confirm at the retailer.
£29.58 £59.16/L
The Great Wine Co. Best price Save 12% 2025 · 50cl · checked 25 Oct · Delivery £8, free on 4 bottles
Read from the retailer's page once a day. Confidence is low, so treat it as a guide and confirm at the retailer.
£30.00 was regular price £34.00 £60.00/L
Vino.com Best price 2025 · 50cl · checked 25 Oct · Delivery usually £16.90, free on 5 bottles Code WINE6R8T: £17 off your first wine order with £180 minimum spend, until 13 Jan 2028
Read from the retailer's page once a day. Confidence is low, so treat it as a guide and confirm at the retailer.
£30.10 £60.20/L
Field & Fawcett Best price Not stated · 75cl · checked 25 Oct · Delivery £9.99, or £14.99 for 3+ bottles, free on 6 bottles
Read from the retailer's page once a day. Confidence is low, so treat it as a guide and confirm at the retailer.
£33.60 £44.80/L

Stock status is read from each retailer’s page once a day and may lag. Case and magnum listings show a per-bottle or per-litre equivalent and sit outside the best-price figure.

Tasting Notes

How Planeta's Passito di Noto tastes: apricot, honey, rose

A rich Sicilian sweet wine: ripe loquat, dried apricot, chestnut honey, rose petals and candied orange. It is 100% Moscato Bianco, sun-dried for five weeks until the grapes lose 42% of their weight, then fermented sweet to 183 grams per litre of sugar.

Tasted by
ItalianWines editorial
Tasted on
12 June 2026
Source
Drinker consensus · confidence Medium
Nose

Planeta's Passito di Noto pours bright golden. It opens on an explosive Moscato perfume: ripe loquat and dried apricot, chestnut honey, rose petals and candied orange peel, with jasmine and a twist of papaya. Five weeks of drying concentrate the aromatics rather than cook them.

Orange peelOrange peel
JasmineJasmine
Rose petalRose petal
ApricotApricot
RaisinRaisin
MarzipanMarzipan
VanillaVanilla
HoneyHoney
Palate

This is sweet, creamy and dense at 183 grams per litre of sugar left in the wine. Yet 10 grams per litre of acidity and a low 3.08 pH hold it upright, so it tastes lifted rather than cloying. Apricot jam, marzipan and dates run through a full, unctuous body near 12% alcohol. The lime-marl soils of Buonivini show as a salty edge.

Finish

The finish is long and harmonious. The honeyed Noto sweetness fades slowly against that Moscato acidity into a close of candied citrus, almond and chestnut honey.

Overall

This is a benchmark Sicilian dessert wine and one of Planeta's most decorated bottles. James Suckling scored the 2019 at 95 points and the Wine Advocate gave it 93. Drinkers are fond of it too. Pour it in 50cl with almond pastries, cassata or a wedge of blue cheese, now or after a decade in the cellar.

Drink now Best by 2040
Live UK pricing

Buying Planeta Passito di Noto in the UK

A Sicilian dessert wine sold in 50cl half-bottles, the size made for sharing after dinner. UK merchants list the 2024 and 2025 vintages around 30 pounds, each one 100% Moscato Bianco from Planeta's Buonivini estate at Noto in south-east Sicily.

Best price · 75 cl · Vintage not stated £33.60 at Field & Fawcett
Price spread · 50cl · 2025 £26.00 - £30.10 Across 4 UK retailers with 50cl · 2025 in stock
Retailers · 50cl · 2025 4UK 4 in stock
Vintages live 2025 Current release: 2025
Per-litre (50cl · 2025 basis) £52.00 Lowest current 50cl · 2025 offer
Last checked 25 Oct 2026 Refreshed once every 24 hours
Other vintages and formats: 1 price line

75cl · Vintage not stated: £33.60, 1 UK retailer

Wine fit score

Where Passito di Noto fits: a dessert wine for occasions

This is a sweet specialist, not a weeknight pour: a 50cl Sicilian passito built for the cheese course and the dessert table. It scores high for occasion and for food at the sweet end, lower for everyday drinking, at around 30 pounds the half-bottle.

Best for an occasion 8.2/10

A critic-decorated dessert wine in a shareable 50cl format: the cheese course, the festive table and the after-dinner pour are exactly its occasion.

Best with food 7.2/10

Brilliant with desserts, blue cheese and foie gras but a sweet specialist: high versatility within the dessert lane, none with savoury mains.

Best for cellar 7.2/10

183 grams per litre of sugar and bright acidity give real ageing capacity; Planeta says time works wonders, and a decade deepens it toward dried fig and caramel.

Best intro to this style 7.0/10

Sweet, perfumed Moscato is easy to enjoy and forgiving, though a 50cl dessert wine is a treat bottle rather than a first everyday white.

Best value 6.8/10

About 30 pounds for 50cl of hand-dried, 95-point Sicilian passito is fair value for the labour: every grape lost 42% of its weight drying.

Best everyday bottle 2.2/10

A sweet 50cl bottle at about 30 pounds is a dessert-course treat, not a weeknight pour; everyday appeal is low by design.

Scoring is rule-based and deterministic. The model and weightings are documented in our Wine Fit Score methodology.

Denomination Compliance Snapshot

Noto in five fields

A compact view of what the Noto denomination actually requires, and how this bottle sits inside it. Pulled from the official Italian disciplinare.

Allowed grapes
2 varieties listed
This bottle: Moscato.
Minimum ageing
No statutory minimum
Producers release on their own schedule; 4 to 6 months in steel is typical.
Region / area
Siracusa: the Val di Noto limestone around Noto, Rosolini, Pachino and Avola
Source: Disciplinare.
Style
DOC · Noto
Minimum ABV at this colour: 12.5%.
Classification
DOC (Denominazione di Origine Controllata)
Vintages

Passito di Noto across recent vintages

Planeta has made Passito di Noto since 2003, and the style holds steady year to year: the 2025 sits at 12% alcohol with 183 grams per litre of sugar left in the wine. Critics have scored recent releases highly, with Wine Enthusiast at 95 points for the 2019.

2025 Current release
Best price
£26.00 50cl bottle
Retailers
4 in stock
ABV
12.0%
Window
Drink now through 2041

The 2025 carries 12% alcohol and 183 g/l of residual sugar against 10 g/l of total acidity, bottled in March 2026. A textbook young Passito di Noto: dense and sweet but lifted, built to deepen toward dried fig and caramel over a decade in the cellar.

2024 Sold through
Best price
not listed
Retailers
0 in stock
Window
Drink now through 2040

The 2024 is the current young release: bright primary apricot and candied orange over the honeyed Moscato sweetness, with enough acidity to drink now or keep. The grapes lose over 40% of their weight drying before a slow, cold-stopped fermentation.

Not stated
Best price
£33.60
Retailers
1 in stock

Drink-now / hold guidance reflects general style cues for this wine, not a forecast for a specific bottle. Where vintage-level editorial notes exist, they appear above.

The disciplinare, the place, the label

Why Noto is Sicily's home for Moscato passito

Planeta farms Moscato Bianco at Buonivini and Agliastro near Noto, on lime-marl soils with chalk fragments 40 metres above the sea in south-east Sicily. The grapes are hand-picked in August, then dried in a controlled chamber, an antique sweet-wine tradition the estate makes in a modern, organic, SOStain-certified way.

01

DOC, DOCG, IGT: what the badges mean

Italian wine law sorts bottles into a pyramid. DOCG sits at the top: tightly drawn boundaries, prescribed grapes, mandatory ageing, government tasting before release. DOC is the same idea with looser thresholds. IGT (Indicazione Geografica Tipica) is broader still, requiring only that 85% of the grapes come from the named territory.

Noto is in the DOC tier. That is not a quality verdict, it is a description of how much freedom the producer has at vinification and ageing.

02

The denomination rules, in detail

  • Allowed grapes. 2 varieties listed in the disciplinare
  • Yield ceiling. 12.0 tonnes per hectare
  • Minimum ABV. 12.5% vol
  • Minimum ageing. No statutory minimum - producers release on their own schedule
  • Tasting panel. No mandatory pre-release tasting
03

Region and area context

Noto falls within Sicily, covering Siracusa: the Val di Noto limestone around Noto, Rosolini, Pachino and Avola.

Noto DOC zone The producer

Made at Planeta, Menfi. Directions

04

Reading the label

  • PlanetaProducer / estate
  • MoscatoGrape varieties
  • Noto DOCGeographic indication and quality tier
  • 2025Vintage (year of harvest)
  • 12.0% vol · 50 clAlcohol by volume and bottle size
  • Imbottigliato all’origineEstate-bottled
05

What sits behind the price of Passito di Noto

Tracked from
£33.60
Direction
Mostly cost up
Drivers
5 up / 1 down
Main factor
Five-week appassimento, 42% weight loss
  1. 01

    Five-week appassimento, 42% weight loss

    Cost up

    Planeta hand-picks Moscato into 5 to 6 kg crates and dries it five weeks, until the grapes lose 42% of their weight. Well over a kilo of fruit goes into each 50cl bottle.

  2. 02

    Organic and SOStain-certified farming

    Cost up

    Buonivini is farmed organically under the SOStain protocol, with cover crops and minimal copper and sulphur, costlier than conventional viticulture.

  3. 03

    Hand harvest and cluster-by-cluster selection

    Cost up

    Grapes are picked by hand in mid-August, dried in a chamber checked daily, then sorted cluster by cluster to discard imperfect berries before destemming.

  4. 04

    Cold-stopped fermentation and months of ageing

    Cost up

    A 45-day fermentation is halted by cold to lock in 183 grams per litre of sugar, then the wine rests several months before a March bottling, tying up cellar space.

  5. 05

    UK duty and VAT on the finished bottle

    Cost up

    Still-wine duty is near 1.78 pounds on a 50cl bottle at 12%, scaled from 2.67 pounds per 75cl, and 20% VAT on about 30 pounds adds roughly 5 pounds before margin.

  6. 06

    Sicilian Moscato fruit and estate land

    Cost down

    Moscato Bianco from Noto and Sicilian estate land cost far less than a Sauternes vineyard, holding the price near 30 pounds rather than the 50-plus of comparable botrytis sweet wines.

01

Five-week appassimento, 42% weight loss

Cost up

Planeta hand-picks Moscato into 5 to 6 kg crates and dries it five weeks, until the grapes lose 42% of their weight. Well over a kilo of fruit goes into each 50cl bottle.

Perfect Pairings

Dishes that go with this wine

Food Pairing

Sweet Moscato, fresh acidity: dishes that fit this passito

Planeta points this wine at drier sweets lifted by acid fruit, at marzipan and creamed-ricotta dolci like cassata, and at the chocolate of Modica. Its 183 grams per litre of sugar sit on 10 grams per litre of acidity, and that sweetness also tames a salty blue cheese.

Sweet balance Strong match

Almond tarts and baked puddings

A wine must be at least as sweet as the pudding or it tastes thin. At 183 grams per litre of sugar this passito matches dense baked sweets, and its dried-apricot and marzipan notes echo a frangipane Bakewell tart.

Try with: Bakewell Tart · Treacle Tart · Sticky Toffee Pudding · Christmas Pudding · More pairings →

Salt balance Strong match

Blue cheese and the cheese board

Sweetness is the classic foil for salty, pungent blue cheese. The honeyed Moscato softens a Gorgonzola or Roquefort's bite while its acidity scrubs the palate clean between bites.

Try with: Blue cheese · More pairings →

Aromatic bridge Good match

Honey-soaked nut pastries

Chestnut-honey and candied-citrus aromatics bridge straight into a syrupy, nutty baklava. Matched sweetness means the wine meets the pastry's honey head-on rather than being flattened by it.

Try with: Baklava · More pairings →

Body matching Good match

Panettone and candied-fruit cakes

The wine's candied-orange and raisin notes mirror a panettone's peel and sultanas. A full, creamy body and matched sweetness make it a natural partner for festive Italian sweet breads.

Try with: Panettone · More pairings →

Fat cutting Good match

Creamy cheesecake and ricotta dolci

Here the acidity does the work, cutting a cheesecake's rich, fatty cream so each forkful tastes fresh. It is the wine equivalent of Planeta's own creamed-ricotta cassata pairing.

Try with: Cheesecake · More pairings →

Avoid Clash

Dry savoury mains and very bitter chocolate

A sweet wine with 183 grams of sugar per litre swamps dry savoury mains and turns thin and sour against very bitter 85% dark chocolate. Keep it to the dessert and cheese course; Planeta's softer Modica chocolate is the exception.

Skip with: grilled steak · roast chicken · 90% dark chocolate · green salad · Pairing guide →

Drinking + cellar

Cellaring Planeta Passito di Noto

Planeta calls the ageing capacity long: as with all sweet wines, time works wonders. High sugar and bright acidity let a 50cl bottle hold and deepen for a decade or more, the apricot and honey turning toward dried fig and caramel. No rush, and no penalty for opening one young.

Drinking window
2026 → 2041

Best in the years above; holds without falling over either side.

Decanting
Not needed

Pour it straight from the bottle.

Cellar potential
High

183 grams per litre of sugar and bright acidity give real ageing capacity; Planeta says time works wonders, and a decade deepens it toward dried fig and caramel.

Buy now or wait?
Buy now

£33.60 for a 75cl bottle, at Field & Fawcett, is the best price we track, and we have no signal of further discounting.

Sources & trust

Sources behind this Passito di Noto page

Prices & stock

Read directly from each retailer’s public product page once a day. Last refresh: 25 Oct 2026, 03:57 BST. We do not hold stock and we do not accept payment for placement.

Confidence · High
Tasting notes

Drawn from published drinker ratings, summarised in our own words. A crowd read across many tasters, not a single critic.

Confidence · Medium
Appellation rules & ageing

From the official Italian disciplinare for this denomination, cross-checked against the Ministry of Agriculture register.

Confidence · High
Why it costs what it costs

Our reading of the price, drawn from the disciplinare, public UK duty rates, and typical landed-cost benchmarks. Not a quote from the producer or a retailer.

Confidence · Medium
Drink window & cellar potential

Style guidance for this kind of wine at this price point. Treat it as advice, not a forecast for the bottle in your hand.

Confidence · Medium
Related

Planeta, Moscato Bianco and Noto connections

Common Questions

A sweet Sicilian dessert wine made from 100% Moscato Bianco grown near Noto in south-east Sicily. Planeta sun-dries the grapes for five weeks before a slow fermentation, giving a rich passito with 183 grams per litre of sugar left in the wine.

Sweet. It carries 183 grams per litre of sugar left in the wine, balanced by bright acidity, so it tastes honeyed and concentrated but not cloying. It belongs with dessert and the cheese course, not as a dry table white.

Almond pastries, panettone and creamed-ricotta dolci such as cassata, plus a salty blue cheese. Planeta also recommends marzipan sweets and the chocolate of Modica. Its sweetness needs an equally sweet or salty partner.

100% Moscato Bianco, the white Muscat grape long associated with sweet wines around Noto and Syracuse in Sicily. Planeta grows it organically at its Buonivini and Agliastro vineyards.

Years. High sugar and acidity let it age a decade or more, deepening toward dried fig and caramel, though it also drinks well young. The 50cl format keeps an opened bottle manageable over the dessert course.

UK merchants currently list the 2024 and 2025 vintages, both in 50cl half-bottles at around 30 pounds. The style is consistent across vintages, with recent releases scoring up to 95 points from James Suckling.

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Passito di Noto