The flavor of grapefruit in wine of Malta
Discover the of Malta wines revealing the of grapefruit flavor during the olphactive analysis (nose) and during the gustative analysis (mouth).
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.
The Roussillon is home to a range of wine styles, at varying price points. Sweet fortified wines (vin doux naturel) used to dominate production, with still dry wines (vin sec) in the minority. In the last 30 years, however, this has completely changed, and vin sec now makes up the majority (80%) of the Roussillon’s output. The recent Wines of Roussillon tasting, held in London, not only highlighted many good quality dry wines being produced, but also cemented the idea that Roussillon whites are ...
The spirit was filled into a single ex-Sherry cask at the Speyside distillery in 1940, shortly before The Second World War forced The Macallan to close for the first time in its history. Bottled at 41.6% abv, only 288 decanters are available worldwide, featuring eye-catching packaging: a mouth-blown glass decanter sitting on a bronze sculpture of three hands, created by Scottish artist Saskia Robinson. The hands represent the distillery workers of 1940 who made the whisky; former Macallan chairm ...
Last year, there was much mirth on wine Twitter about a particularly excruciating tasting note. You’re right. The wine trade needs to get out more. But still… this one was a beauty. It began well enough – really quite beautiful, in fact. But before long the imaginative descriptions were getting more ornate and strained. It moved from poetic to meaningless before finishing with a reference to Burnt Norton – the first of TS Eliot’s Four Quartets – that put it firmly in Private Eye magazine’s ...