Over 380 grape growers, one exceptional harvest.

The very last grapes to be pressed this year by Delicata rolled into the winery by the crate-full last week, exactly seven weeks after the 2013 harvest started on 2nd August.

It has been one exceptional harvest as one can see from the photo reportage picturing this year’s harvest by Malta’s most awarded winery day-by-day.

All in all Delicata has crushed well in excess of one million kilos of Malta and Gozo grown grapes. Almost 20 different grape varieties were picked from over 380 family-run vineyards making up the Delicata domaine for the crafting of different styles of white, red and rosé wine.

The very last cultivar to get gently pressed in the winery’s Willmes press under the watchful eye of 4th generation winemaker Matthew Delicata was Malta’s very own, unique white grape variety, Girgentina.

This indigenous Maltese grape variety, which has been championed by Delicata for years, is, similar to Vermentino, a large and loose bunched variety. The berries are green to amber in colour, not unlike Muscat of Alexandria, and are thick-skinned. The variety ripens late and the grapes are fragrant and fruity at the same time.

The resulting wines are pleasingly crisp, slightly flinty on the nose and green-appley flavoured. Girgentina comes into its own as a unique semi-sparkling dry white wine labelled as Girgentina Frizzato. It is also a perfect blending partner for fleshier Chardonnay as in the dry white Medina Chardonnay-Girgentina D.O.K. Malta. Together with other fashionable varieties such as Vermentino and the rarer Viognier, Girgentina produces Delicata’s ever popular Pjazza Regina I.G.T. Maltese Islands white.

Seven weeks after the first grapes were crushed the arrival of the indigenous green-skinned grape variety Girgentina finally signalled the end of the 2013 grape harvest. From here onward nature’s bounty rests in the skilled hands of the winemaker.