Delicata Ends Seven Weeks of Grape Pressing
1. The indigenous grapes of Malta – Girgentina (left) and Gellewza (right). 2. Three single varietal, indigenous, Delicata wines – From left to right – Girgentina Frizzante, Medina Gellewza, Maltese Falcon Gellewza Rose.
Seven weeks ago to the day, we started the pressing of our 2015 harvested grapes with our hand-picked D.O.K. Malta Chardonnay, and 49 days later as the penultimate ‘big red’ D.O.K. Malta Cabernet Sauvignon grapes rolled into our winery, this year’s pressing has finally come to a close; but not before our last two grapes went through the press, Malta’s ‘very own’ unique, indigenous grape varieties, Girgentina & Gellewza.
In total this year, within those 7 weeks, we pressed in excess of 1.1 million kilo of locally grown grapes, from an assortment of over 20 different varieties.
As is the case every year, the traditional bush trained Girgentina and Gellewza are the last to be hand-picked by an army of our Delicata growers, all of whom are anxious to pick early rather than late, due to the sporadic but sometimes heavy rain fall that can (and often does) occur during September. But as far as our winemaker is concerned leaving the grapes on the vine just that little bit longer yields better results quality wise. The principal advantage of a prolonged dry season is the sanitary state of the grapes, and the rainfall has been minimal this September and thus late picking was realized and took place earlier this week. To receive disease / mildew free grapes that have attained optimum ripeness by these late ripening varieties is a yearly objective, not always achieved, but this year, once again Matthew Delicata’s patience has been rewarded. The quality of both varieties of the 2015 harvested indigenous grapes is first class and will no doubt achieve above average levels of natural alcohol.
The indigenous grape varieties of Malta have been championed by Delicata for years. The white Girgentina is a large, loose bunched variety, with amber coloured, thick skinned berries that are both fragrant and fruity. The resulting wines are crisp, slightly ‘minerally’ and full flavoured and produce good quality dry white wines, which can be used exclusively on their own, like in the semi sparkling brut I.G.T. Girgentina Frizzante, or blended with Chardonnay as in our D.O.K. Malta Medina Chardonnay Girgentina, or with Vermentino and Viognier to produce our increasingly popular Pjazza Regina I.G.T. Maltese Islands white.
The large berried, pale red Gellewza variety is packed with ripe aromatic fruit flavours and is nearly all fermented as a rose wine at the Delicata winery. This then goes into our I.G.T. wine Pjazza Regina Rose (often blended with either Grenache or Syrah) and exclusively into our I.G.T. Maltese Falcon Rose. Most famously however, it will be used in Delicata’s ever popular award winning I.G.T. ‘lifestyle rose’ Gellewza Frizzante, a wine that has won six international wine awards in recent years. A small amount of red Gellewza is also produced which goes into our 2014 vintage Medina Gellewza, a new red wine only released for the first time two months ago.
