Winery to see a million kilos of grapes pressed

This year’s grape harvest will be a memorable one at Delicata winery, as the grapes pressed were the very first ones to be fermented in the company’s newly-built customised, refrigerated white wine fermentation unit.

An independent, family-run winemaking company, Delicata now has two fermentation halls, including the state-of-the-art main fermentation hall with its ‘cathedral’ of stainless steel tanks.

The main hall is mainly used for grape pressing and red wine production, equipped with specialised ‘pump over’ vats and ganimede tanks of various sizes.

Delicata’s latest technical breakthrough, however, is a customised refrigerated hall that houses white wine fermenting and storage tanks, together with new oak barriques. Not only are the individual stainless steel tanks temperature-controlled but the whole refrigerated fermentation hall.

This latest technological winemaking initiative has been evolving since the last harvest, finished in September 2014, and was completed exactly in time for this year’s harvest.

This innovative unit houses stainless steel tanks of varying sizes, allowing the winemaker to separate, ferment and store single ‘boutique’ vineyard wines of selected grape varieties from specific areas. The temperature-controlled hall also houses new 225-litre French and American oak barrels that will be used for white wine fermentation and red wine maturation.

“This latest development is the third phase of an investment plan we initiated almost seven years ago,” a Delicata spokesperson said.

“The result of our ‘winemaking facility overhaul’ now hosts a separate grape-receiving and quality-inspection area, an eco-friendly main fermentation hall and all the technologically-advanced winemaking equipment required to operate it efficiently and now this new refrigerated white wine fermentation unit an investment of millions of euros.”

The first grapes to roll into the these facilities (Chardonnay and Sauvignon Blanc) arrived at the winery on the Waterfront on August 6 and will keep rolling in until mid-September, by which time Delicata would have pressed over one million kilos of grapes from approximately 20 grape varieties, including Vermentino, Viognier, Moscato, Merlot, Syrah, Cabernet Sauvignon, Ġellewża, Girgentina and many more, all hand-picked and selected from some 380 family-run vineyards, spread throughout Malta and Gozo.