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.
Planeta's own notes and Vivino drinkers agree on 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 g/l.
Planeta's Passito di Noto pours bright golden and opens on the Moscato perfume the estate calls explosive: 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 peel
Jasmine
Rose petal
Apricot
Raisin
Marzipan
Vanilla
HoneySweet, creamy and dense at 183 g/l of residual sugar, yet held upright by 10 g/l of acidity and a low 3.08 pH, 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 showing as a saline edge.
Long and harmonious, the honeyed Noto sweetness fading slowly against that Moscato acidity into a close of candied citrus, almond and chestnut honey.
A benchmark Sicilian dessert wine and one of Planeta's most decorated bottles: James Suckling and Wine Enthusiast both scored the 2019 at 95 points, Robert Parker's Wine Advocate at 93. Vivino drinkers rate it around 4.1 to 4.2 across thousands of ratings. Pour it in 50cl with almond pastries, cassata or a wedge of blue cheese, now or after a decade in the cellar.
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.
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.
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.
Brilliant with desserts, blue cheese and foie gras but a sweet specialist: high versatility within the dessert lane, none with savoury mains.
183 g/l of sugar and bright acidity give real ageing capacity; Planeta says time works wonders, and a decade deepens it toward dried fig and caramel.
Sweet, perfumed Moscato is easy to enjoy and forgiving, though a 50cl dessert wine is a treat bottle rather than a first everyday white.
Scoring is rule-based and deterministic. The model and weightings are documented in our editorial methodology.
A compact view of what the Noto denomination actually requires, and how this bottle sits inside it. Pulled from the official Italian disciplinare.
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Planeta has made Passito di Noto since 2003, and the style holds steady year to year: the 2025 sits at 12% alcohol with 183 g/l of residual sugar. Critics have scored recent releases highly, with James Suckling and Wine Enthusiast both at 95 points for the 2019.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
Noto falls within Sicily , covering Sicily.
Planeta hand-picks Moscato into 5 to 6 kg crates and dries it five weeks until the grapes lose 42% of their weight, so well over a kilo of fruit goes into each 50cl bottle.
Buonivini is farmed organically under the SOStain protocol, with cover crops and minimal copper and sulphur, costlier than conventional viticulture.
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.
A 45-day fermentation is halted by cold to lock in 183 g/l of residual sugar, then the wine rests several months before a March bottling, tying up cellar space.
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.
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.
Dishes that complement this wine
With 183 g/l of sugar balanced by 10 g/l of acidity, 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 sweetness also tames a salty blue cheese.
A wine must be at least as sweet as the pudding or it tastes thin. At 183 g/l 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 →
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 →
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 →
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 →
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 →
A 183 g/l sweet wine 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 →
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.
Best in the years above; holds without falling over either side.
183 g/l of sugar and bright acidity give real ageing capacity; Planeta says time works wonders, and a decade deepens it toward dried fig and caramel.
£29.58 is the lowest tracked offer for the current vintage and we have no signal of further discounting.
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Confidence · HighDrawn from what drinkers consistently report on Vivino and Wine-Searcher, summarised in our own words. A crowd read across many tasters, not a single critic.
Confidence · MediumFrom the official Italian disciplinare for this denomination, cross-checked against the Ministry of Agriculture register.
Confidence · HighOur 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 · MediumStyle guidance for this kind of wine at this price point. Treat it as advice, not a forecast for the bottle in your hand.
Confidence · MediumA 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 g/l of residual sugar.
Sweet. It carries 183 g/l of residual sugar 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 and Wine Enthusiast.
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