If you were to take a culinary snapshot of Malta, apart from wine, tuna and capers would be some of the most likely local ingredients centred in the crosshairs of your viewfinder. Prepared together with fresh veal, they would make for a vanguard Maltese surf-and-turf dish local fishermen and farmers, chefs and sommeliers, and all … Read More
Our Wine’s Niceties and Its Scarcities
Once a winemaker found himself in the awkward position of being reproved while dining out by the chef- patron because his winery had run out of stock of one of the bestselling wines on the restaurant’s carefully curated list. To this, the winemaker graciously replied with the question why the catch of the day didn’t … Read More
Maltese Heroism in a Bottle
The adjective ‘heroic’ has, of course, been used before in the world of wine, namely to describe the efforts of vignerons and winemakers that work in steep, precipitous places inhospitable to man. Malta may not qualify as a mountainous island. But what else would you call local winegrowing if not audacious, brave and courageous? In … Read More
Gorgeous Garrigue in My Glass
Alas, land is far from sacred in Malta and even linguistically it’s sometimes referred to harshly and contemptuously. Through the use of the word xagħri, which derives from the Arabic sahra for desert, we demote our garrigue, those few untouched patches of literally hundreds of different low-growing shrubs and rare indigenous plants, to useless land … Read More
Nothing But The Whole Wine
So many people have been made to believe by the virtues of noses and egos of famous wine critics and other characters in the wine trade that the only way to appreciate wine is through a reductionist search for certain distinct characteristics. If you’re a wine enthusiast who’s attended the odd wine tasting session, you … Read More