Top 100 wines of Malta - Page 3
Discover the top 100 best wines of Malta as well as the best winemakers in the region. Explore the varietals of the wines that are popular of Malta and the best vintages to taste in this region.
Discovering the wine region of Malta
Malta is a small island (25 miles / 40m Long) located in the CentralTurkey/mediterranean">Mediterranean Sea, 80 km South of Sicily. Wine growing on the island dates back to the early 16th century, when the Knights of St. John of Israel/judean-hills/jerusalem">Jerusalem (or Knights Hospitallers) arrived on the island, bringing with them centuries of wine-making tradition that accompanied them from Jerusalem (in present-day Israel) to Cyprus, via Turkey and Rhodes.
In the early 19th century, the arrival of British ships (merchant and military) in Malta led to a decline in the island's wine production.
This was a departure from the precedent set in Porto, Jerez, Madeira and Italy/sicily/marsala">Marsala, all of which experienced a significant increase in their export-oriented viticulture. Many of Malta's vineyards and olive groves were uprooted in favour of cotton, a popular crop at the time.
Within a century, however, the pendulum swung back in favour of vines; cotton production took off in the United States, which led to a significant drop in the value of Maltese cotton. Viticulture began to take over again (mainly for table Grapes at first) and continued to prosper despite the arrival of Phylloxera which swept through Europe in the 1860s.
The Maltese Climate is typically Mediterranean: summers are hot and Dry, winters are cool and wet. This allows for prolific yields when vineyards are properly managed (irrigation is necessary to make the most of the summer sunshine), as has been demonstrated in Sicily, just to the North. At 35 degrees south, Malta is, along with Cyprus, Crete and Pantelleria, one of the most southerly wine regions in Europe.
Malta's main wine markets are domestic rather than international, so finding a Maltese wine outside of Malta itself can be a challenge.
News from the vineyard of Malta
‘Ultra-rare’ Olivier Bernstein jeroboam sells for £57,000
Cult Wines partnered with Olivier Bernstein to offer the ‘ultra-rare’ jeroboam from the 2017 vintage via its new CultX digital trading platform. An auction hammer price of £57,000 ($69,000) was just under the pre-sale high estimate of £60,000. Cult Wines said the jeroboam set a new benchmark price for Romanée-St-Vivant grand cru and was sold for the equivalent of £14,250 per 75cl bottle – again demonstrating the strength of the market for high-end Burgundy wines. ‘Given the scarcity ...
Palladius and Columella verticals: Eben Sadie’s Swartland flagships
The rapid rise of South Africa’s Swartland wine region over the past 20 years has been thrilling to watch. And arguably the most influential winemaker during this renaissance has – and continues to be – Eben Sadie. Sadie was in London recently for a vertical tasting of his flagship wines, the red blend Columella and white blend Palladius. He explained to a rapt audience of critics, buyers and sommeliers how his approach to winemaking has changed over the years, and revealed how he’s preparing fo ...
Rare whiskies and DRC excite buyers at Sotheby’s HK auctions
A methuselah of Romanée-Conti 1976 from Burgundy’s vaunted Domaine de la Romanée-Conti was among the highlights in a two-day series of Sotheby’s wine and spirits auctions in Hong Kong last weekend. The six-litre bottle sold for HK$1.25m (US$159,350), against a pre-sale estimate range of HK$1m to HK$1.4m. In a separate spirits auction, a single bottle of Yamazaki 35 Year Old Japanese whisky fetched HK$1m (US$127,440). Rare white Burgundy was also in-demand during the weekend event. Top lot in a f ...