Thousands of visitors attended Delicata's very first official open day recently, at the company's winery on Paola waterfront. Wine enthusiasts started flocking in as soon as the doors opened at 10.00am and there was a steady stream of people all day up until it closed at 6.00pm.
Visitors casually strolled throughout the whole winery complex following the winemakers trail which explained the transformation the grape undergoes as it is turned into quality wine. Many people were particularly interested in tasting the recent 2009 vintage wines directly from the temperature controlled stainless steel fermentation tanks. The audio visual presentation area was also very well attended.
A spokesperson from Delicata said "We are delighted with the turnout for this event, it has exceeded our expectations. We are particularly pleased with the many positive comments we received from people attending who had no idea of the lengths we go too to produce a quality bottle of Maltese wine. If you have never visited our winery it is impossible to envisage the state of the art technology and machinery we have installed here. We are proud of the winemaking facility we have, which is unrivalled here on our islands.
It is vitally important to look after the grapes in the vineyards, as every winemaker will tell you, but equally important is the winemaking side of the story. There is an old saying that ‘you cannot make good wine from poor grapes' but more importantly we believe that ‘you can make poor wine from good grapes' if you don't have the right skills and equipment, and that is why we are constantly investing in new technology and introducing new winemaking practices all the time."
In a fairly recent international technical audit report conducted independently by David Bird MW his report read "Quality standards in Delicata are very high. There are documented procedures and monitoring systems in all areas."
Following the success of Delicata's open day, we will almost certainly be repeating the event, with a few improvements, next year the spokesperson concluded.
HEALTHY ‘WHITE' WINE.
A molecular biologist, from the University of Connecticut in Farmington America, has said: "The flesh of the grape can do the same job as the skin" following the release of a recent study that says white wine is just as good for you as red. It has already been well established that red wine is healthy, as resveratrol, a grape-skin ingredient, has often been cited as the cause of the "French paradox" - the fact that French people have low rates of heart disease despite eating a lot of fat.
Rats given a tipple of Italian white wine with their meals suffered less heart attack damage than animals allowed only water or raw grain alcohol. The benefits were similar to those seen in animals fed red wine, or its "wonder" grape-skin ingredient, resveratrol. However, white wine, made from the pulp of grapes but not the skin, contains no resveratrol. Lab tests suggested that white wine protected the mitochondria in heart cells, the rod-shaped cell structures that act as energy-generating "powerplants".
DELICATA GOES DUTCH
A new wine company selling Delicata wines has been set up in the Netherlands by the owners of Kook - Salon. The new company FenFwijnselectie imports and distributes Delicata wines in the Netherlands and Belgium, is owned by Folker Tieleman and Frans van Eck. The core business Kook - Salon is a successful venture that provides luxury dining experiences and private parties within people's homes throughout the Netherlands. The new company is an extension of that business and forms a retailing arm, thereby making the items used at their functions available to purchase on line.
The wines stocked by FenFwijnselectie are Delicata's D.O.K. Malta wines Gran Cavalier, Grand vin de Hauteville and Medina. Their D.O.K. Gozo wines Victoria Heights and their I.Ġ. T. Maltese Islands range of wines Pjazza Regina which are all used exclusively both at the Kook - Salon functions and now on line www.fenfwijnselectie.nl