The 2012 vintage has been a bumper year for Delicata. The pressing phase came to an end yesterday with the last grapes pressed being Malta’s indigenous white grape variety, Girgentina.

This final delivery of Malta and Gozo-grown grapes surpassed the one-million-kilo threshold.

Just to put it into perspective, if all the vines needed to produce one million kilos of grapes were lined up, they would cover the length from Valletta to Athens (some 850 kilometres) or circle Malta (137 kilometres) just over six times.

This amount is made up of 20 different grape varieties, grown and hand-picked in selected Delicata vineyards from 350 farmers, spread across Malta and Gozo.

Girgentina’s performance this year was an improvement on last year’s crop, both in quality and quantity.

The unique native white grape achieved better-than-usual sugar levels, had less disease than last year and had higher yields. The resulting wines should be fruitier and with better balance.

Delicata also purchased more Girgentina than in previous years due to the increase in demand.