It's commonly used in Germany, as Howie said, Jenise.
At Bonterra, the winemaker makes small batches of a Muscat in somewhat the same way. It's a labor of love, for both the vineyard and the style, on his part, and no labor at all to drink and enjoy.
Basically, he gets the Muscat from Ron Bartolucci's vineyard in Lake County (they've been working together for years and years). When the do the press, Bob pulls a certain portion of the juice and "cryos" it---that is, he separates it out into stainless steel and lowers the temp to just a degreee or so above freezing.
He takes the bulk of the must and makes the wine (again, totally stainles steel; no wood on this baby). When it is fermented out dry, he'll warm up the raw juice and fold it into the the wine.
The result is an absolutely delicious Muscat that is about 9% RS and 9% alcohol, but with the fresh, zesty liveliness of Muscat. It's somewhat like the Moscato d'Asti, in that it doesn't have cloying levels of sweetness, isn't oppresively heavy and oily and oversugared in the mouth, and has marvellous fruit and floral and spice aromas.
Bob makes only a few hundred cases a year, and bottles it only in half bottles, so it's damned hard to find (well, not for me
), but if you find any, check it out. Again like Moscato d'Asti, it's a perfect summery sipper for after dinner because it avoids the syrupy, honeyed, cloying, heavy, high alcohol dessert wine or fortified wine feel.
And another thing: one of my favorite hot weather desserts is to take a watermelon, scoop out a half, fill it with a fresh chopped fruit cocktail, then pour a couple of bottles of this Muscat over it, put it in the freezer for a couple of hours, then serve the watermelon and let everybody scoop out what they want. Very seldom do I have any leftovers.
I've also made slushies (or what some friends call Frozen Muscataritas) by pouring in a few bottles of the Moscat into a margarita machine, letting it slush up, then serving it garnished with a sprig of fresh apple mint.