The Cabernet Franc won a gold medal in Italy for last year’s 2013 vintage wine.

The five reds from the Medina range of DOK Malta wines, produced by award-winning winemaker Emmanuel Delicata, have all achieved Superior accreditation for the 2014 vintage.

The five red wines are the Medina Syrah, Merlot, Sangiovese, a Syrah Carignan Grenache blend and the Cabernet Franc, which won a gold medal in Italy for last year’s 2013 vintage wine.

For DOK red wines to obtain the Superior classification, the wines submitted for accreditation cannot have undergone any form of enrichment and have to have a minimum natural alcoholic content and a minimum total alcoholic content of 12.5 per cent in the wine put up for consumption.

All of these wines, with the exception of the Cabernet Franc (at 12.5 per cent), achieved an alcoholic content of 13 per cent. All five reds will be bottled at the Delicata winery and released on the market in the coming weeks.

Each of the wines has its own particular characteristics

Each of the wines has its own particular characteristics and will appeal to different wine consumers, but, if I were to recommend ‘two to try’, they would be the Medina Syrah Carignan Grenache blend and the Sangiovese.

The ever-popular blend of three red grape varieties was in fact the original ‘one and only’ Medina red that was launched in 2000, when the range consisted of just two wines.

Fifteen years on, the wine has remained true to form as the easy-drinking, lighter-bodied red that it was designed to be; a wine which can be equally enjoyed on its own or as an accompaniment to food. This vintage, however, a large percentage of the red grape juice was fermented using the maceration carbonique method, used primarily to maximise the fruitiness of the resulting wine while leaving some of the more astringent tannins behind. The result is a vibrant, fruity red wine that can even be drunk slightly chilled during the hot summer months.

My other recommendation would be the 2014 Medina Sangiovese, a particular favourite of mine. It’s a grape variety that I feel is performing particularly well here in Malta and produces a red wine with lots of character, bags of ripe spicy flavours and, again, good with or without food, making it a great all-rounder.

Definitely one to keep an eye out for as soon as it is released on to the market in a few weeks.