It is great to see so many local restaurants, cookery programmes and magazines highlighting the attributes of using local produce in recipes. It seems we are going through the early stages of a revival of home-grown cuisine, something that is long overdue.

Many talented chefs are taking the best of local ingredients, together with traditional dishes and ‘jazzing’ them up to come in line with 21st century cooking and consumer eating habits, thus rejuvenating Maltese cuisine.

All the time I am stumbling across some great new dishes in restaurants using local ingredients in an innovative and exciting way such as Maltese honey-glazed de-boned quails, rabbit liver risotto, seared carpaccio of tuna and octopus, rabbit liver pâté with fig chutney, crispy Maltese sausage and cherry tomato risotto cakes, to mention a few.

But what most people seem to forget is that there are many local wines too. I still see many people ordering a fairly mediocre bottle from foreign shores rather than trying something home-grown that is probably of superior quality, fresher and offers much better value.

During a recent trip to Tuscany, I was dining at a restaurant in Lucca and was lambasted by the waitress for ordering a non-Lucca wine, even though what I chose was still from the same region. Good job I didn’t ask for a French or Australian wine... not that any were available. The wine list was exclusively Tuscan with a couple of token wines from Piedmont – just as it should be.

Now the good news for all of you devoted domestic diners is that when it comes to ordering a Maltese or Gozitan wine to accompany your food, there is no need to stray off the patriotic path, as there is now a whole range of varietals of authentic home-grown wines for you to choose from.

Because it is not just our chefs who have been working hard over the last few years, but also our winemakers.

In the last 20 years or so, a number of grape varieties have been planted successfully across Malta and Gozo, and each of them produces a Maltese and Gozitan wine with a particular style and character.

I still see many people ordering a fairly mediocre bottle from foreign shores rather than trying something home-grown

At the Delicata winery,15 of these grape varieties are harvested and pressed every year, and although some of them are blended together, nearly all of them are used as single varietals in their own right as well.

Below is a list of these varietal names (and their respective wine brands) with a few tips on their taste profiles that might be of use.

The white Maltese varieties used by Delicata are: Sauvignon Blanc (Medina and Gran Cavalier) which makes great aperitif wines that are crisp and dry with a refreshing zing of acidity and lots of clean citric fruit flavours; Viognier (Hauteville) which is really food-friendly because of its weight and full flavour; Girgentina (Frizzato), our unique native variety producing whites with medium weight and depth of flavour; Chardonnay (un-oaked in Medina, Maltese Falcon and Victoria Heights) which makes good clean, fruity dry whites; and when Chardonnay has been matured or fermented in oak barrels (Hauteville and Gran Cavalier), the wine gains more structure and develops a lovely toasted aroma and flavour; Vermentino (Medina and Classic Collection) which makes aromatic, delicate dry whites with distinctive spicy characteristics; and Moscato (Casella and Hauteville), which Delicata uses to make rich, opulent and sweet wines that are just great with desserts.

Delicata’s rosé Maltese wines are made of: Ġellewża (Frizzato and Maltese Falcon), our native red grape that is a superior rosé wine-making grape, which gives very fruity, delicious, medium dry rosés; Grenache (Medina) with its delightful strawberry aroma which makes a superior dry, concentrated rosé wine; and Shiraz (Victoria Heights), which makes a leaner, dry rosé with bags of ripe fruit flavours.

For its red Maltese wines, the winery uses: Merlot (Medina, Maltese Falcon, Victoria Heights and Gran Cavalier) which produces soft, velvety, mellow yet full-bodied reds; Syrah (Medina and Gran Cavalier), which produces vibrant, concentrated fruity reds and soft, leathery style reds if they have been matured in oak barrels; Cabernet Sauvignon (Victoria Heights and Hauteville), which makes firm, full-bodied ‘blackcurrent-y’ reds with a solid structure; Cabernet Franc (Medina) which makes a similar style of reds but slightly leaner; and, finally, Sangiovese (Medina), which makes easy drinking, slightly peppery, medium-bodied red wines that are starting to show good ageing potential.

And if none of these take your fancy, there is also a great selection of wines from some great authentic and original blends.

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