Two Grand Vin de Hauteville premium white wines from the 2014 vintage have been released by Emmanuel Delicata. One of them is made entirely from the world’s most famous white grape variety, Chardonnay, while the other is made from the lesser known variety Viognier.
The Grand Vin de Hauteville Oak Aged Chardonnay, which has been awarded 11 international wine awards for previous vintages including four silvers in Bordeaux, Burgundy and London, is a DOK Malta Chardonnay that has been matured in new French 225-litre oak barriques.
According to DOK production protocols, a winemaker can only label white wines using the term oak-aged (or barrel-matured) if a minimum of 45 per cent of that wine batch has been stored in barrels for at least eight weeks prior to bottling.
The result is a delicate but full-flavoured dry Chardonnay that has an aromatic, slightly toasty nose with subtle hints of spice and vanilla on the palate and good length. It is ideal with white meats and seafood, especially smoked fish like salmon and swordfish.
By comparison, the 2014 vintage Grand Vin de Hauteville Viognier is an unoaked DOK Superior dry white wine made entirely from hand-picked, selected, Malta-grown Viognier grapes.
Even though this variety is not as popular as its noble cousin, in my opinion, the quality of the wine it produces is right up there with the best. What’s more, it has good ageing potential: a few years of ageing make Viognier fatter, richer and even more delicious.
The Viognier grape has only been introduced in Malta in recent years but is producing full-flavoured dry white wines that have good weight and body and are very food friendly, especially with shellfish and white meat dishes such as rabbit.
As well as using Viognier exclusively in Grand Vin de Hauteville, it is also used as part of the blend in the hugely popular IGT Maltese Islands Pjazza Regina dry white wine, when blended with Girgentina, Chardonnay and Vermentino.
Outside Malta it is best known for its use in the French Rhone Valley white wines, in particular the elite white wine Condrieu, as well as in the Languedoc. There are also significant plantings of Viognier in California and Australia and lesser amounts in Italy, New Zealand and South Africa.