The fish of many names, known as mahi-mahi, dorado, lampuga, rakingo, calitos, maverikos or dolphin fish, is fondly known in Malta as lampuka.

With the lampuki season well under way, traditional dishes like lampuki pie and aljotta appear for a brief period of time on many menus or speciality boards at restaurants.

This fleshy fish can be cooked in a number of ways, be it pan-fried, oven-baked, poached, grilled, barbecued, smoked or even raw as a carpaccio.

It is also often stuffed, covered in herbs and spices or served with a variety of sauces.

So when it comes to linking it up with a local wine, there are many things to consider.

Each of the cooking processes used to prepare lampuki will inevitably alter the flavour and sometimes the texture of the fish.

For example, a poached fish will result in a very clean-flavoured fish meat that is both delicate and moist, whereas barbecued fish meat is often drier, with a tighter consistency and comes with a charred flavour.

Needless to say, in both cases a different wine would be needed: a crisp, dry, unoaked white wine with the poached dish and a full-flavoured dry, possibly oak-aged white wine or even a slightly chilled bottle of light-bodied red with the barbecue dish.

Similarly, different ingredients used for the dishes also require a different wine. For example, a lampuka simply pan-fried in a bit of butter will require a light clean white wine, whereas a lampuka pan-fried with extra virgin olive oil, garlic and topped with a caper sauce will require a softer and fuller-flavoured bottle of white wine.

Basically, the heavier the flavour of the finished dish, the fuller the wine needs to be. Here are a few recommended lampuki and wine combinations that work really well together: plain poached or oven-baked lampuka and Medina Chardonnay Girgentina; plain pan-fried lampuki and Pjazza Regina White; plain grilled lampuki and Medina Chardonnay; lampuki carpaccio and Medina Sauvignon Blanc;

Smoked lampuki and Gran Cavalier Chardonnay; aljotta (fish soup) and either Medina Rosé Grenache or Pjazza Regina White; lampuki with a strong sauce, e.g. caper sauce, with Grand vin de Hauteville Viognier; lampuki pie with Victoria Heights Chardonnay; barbecued or chargrilled lampuki with Medina Syrah, Carignan, Grenache.

One of my own personal favourites is lemon and garlic lampuki served with a chilled bottle of Medina Vermentino Zibibbo.

Simply take a large frying pan, heat some vegetable oil and then add a three- to-four kilogram lampuka fillet and cook until it’s golden brown.

Then turn the fish over and add a tablespoon of chopped garlic, lemon juice and about a quarter of a cup of a decent white wine.

Once the wine and lemon juice have cooked down, add half a kilo of cubed unsalted butter and finish cooking, seasoning with salt and freshly groundpepper to taste.

Accompany this with some fresh rocket lettuce lightly drizzled with sweet chilli sauce and some fresh Maltese bread and then simply wash down with a cold glass of refreshing, aromatic, fruity dry Medina Vermentino Zibibbo.