There’ s a quiet wine revolution brewing in the Axarquía hills between Málaga and Nerja along Spain’s southern coast. And it’s based on a grape that either the Greeks or the Carthaginians brought here roughly 3,000 years ago. Locals call it Moscatel de Alejandría, though much of the international wine industry knows the grape as Muscat of Alexandria. North African in origin, it requires an incredibly dry climate because the grapes are very prone to mold. That makes it perfect for the mountains just inland from the Málaga coast. It’s usually associated with dessert wines.

But Moscatel can be coaxed to produce a delicious table wine. Just ask Clara Verheij, the winemaker at Bodegas Bentomiz (Finca El Almendro, Pago Cuesta Robano, Sayalonga; +34 633 049 831; bodegasbentomiz.com). She and her husband André Both moved here from the Netherlands in 1995. They found century-old Moscatel vines next to their house and began making wine. It proved so popular that they launched the winery. At right is guide Rina, squatting in the vineyard next to some of those vines.

Getting to Bentomiz means driving a cliff-edge mountain road with gorgeous views and narrow lanes. The vineyard terraced into the slate hillside certainly won’t make you think of Burgundy or Napa. The scruffy, twisted vines grow close to the ground to protect the grapes from the blistering sun. But the beauty is in the glass.

While Clara is the winemaker, André is an engineer who designed the beautiful winery. (He also supervises the kitchen for their restaurant.) The bodega offers winery tours and tastings (with or without lunch) on Wednesday through Sunday that showcase the range of wines that Clara oversees. The tour and tasting is 15€ or 47€ when followed by a three-course lunch. Reservations are essential.

We drove up for a tour and tasting, which included four different wines. While Bentomiz does purchase some Tempranillo and Merlot grapes from other parts of Spain, we found the most interesting wines to be the ones made with Moscatel de Alejandría. Both the dry and sweet versions are fresh, bright wines redolent of peaches, apricots, and sultanas. We were also impressed with a wine Bentomiz calls PiXel. It’s a juicy dry white wine that ages for four months on the lees. Interestingly, it’s made with a blend of Moscatel and Pedro Ximenez — the same combination that makes the syrupy, dark traditional Málaga wines. Here they are fragrant and slightly yeasty — the perfect pairing for salted almonds.

The sweet Moscatel we tasted, Ariyanes Terruño Pizarroso, should be the winery’s calling card. Produced from grapes that have dried in the sun for three days and aged in French oak for eight months, it’s intensely sweet, perfectly acidic, and gigantic in the mouth. Clara cold shocks the must to stop fermentation while plenty of sugar remains. The wine still reaches 13.5% alcohol, though the smoothness belies the alcoholic punch.

It’s Andalucían sunshine in a glass.