At last weekend’s Delicata Classic Wine Festival a film crew for CNBC World spent three hours filming the event, before visiting the Delicata winery the next morning where they spent a further four hours.

The film crew, who arrived on the Holland America cruise liner, were filming a new wine, food and travel series for the Wine Portfolio programme presented by TV host Jody Ness. The programme which will be aired on CNBC world four times a week later in the year, is watched by over 88 million viewers in the US and 330 million people worldwide.

Jody Ness together with Kevin Fox, President & CEO of Re:Source Media inc and John Primeau the Public Relations Manager of Holland America Line were welcomed to the wine festival on Sunday night by Michael Delicata who had coordinated the visit. They tried several D.O.K. quality wines in the Delicata hospitality area before filming all aspects of the festival including; footage of the live entertainment performed by Steve Cole and Valletta’s very own George ‘Puse’ Curmi and band; live cooking of ‘Maltese Rabbit – Maltese Style’ plus other sumptuous dishes; fine dining at the Saluting Battery with a backdrop unequalled anywhere in the world; plus of course thousands of people simply enjoying themselves with glasses of good Maltese wine.

This years Delicata wine festival, which broke all previous attendance records on all 4 nights of the event, was highly praised by the CNBC news team who stated that they had been caught totally by surprise, both by the quality of the Delicata wines and the atmosphere of the festival itself. As for the venue, they were visually stunned, not only by the gardens themselves, which are lit up by Delicata especially for the event, but by the breathtaking views across Grand harbour and the floodlit 3 cities beyond. They also commented on what a great showcase the festival is for Maltese wines and how unique and impressive such an event is, especially being that it is all organised by one single producer at such an exclusive venue.

The following morning as the cruise liner left for Gozo, the wine team disembarked so they could visit the Delicata winery on Paola waterfront. Unfortunately the team had to leave, to catch the ship in Gozo before it left for Naples, literally just a couple of hours before the first grapes from the 2010 harvest arrived for pressing. However, I did manage to explain the process in full to Jody and his crew as all the equipment was laid out ready to go. We worked our way through the grape receiving area and Delicata’s new fermentation hall before tasting wines from both tank and French oak barrique.

He was particularly interested in the wines made from Malta’s two indigenous grape varieties and particularly liked the Girgentina and Gellewza Frizzantes. He also passed very favourable comments on other wines made from the international varieties such as the two I.G.T. Maltese Islands Maltese Falcon red and Pjazza Regina red as well as the three D.O.K. Malta Medina Vermentino Zibibbo and the barrel matured Gran Cavalier Merlot and Syrah wines. 

CNBC (officially the Consumer News and Business Channel until 1991) is a satellite and cable television business news channel in the U.S., owned and operated by NBC Universal. The network and its international spinoffs cover business headlines and provide live coverage of financial markets. The combined reach of CNBC and its siblings is 390 million viewers around the world. In 2007, the network was ranked as the 19th most valuable cable channel in the U.S., worth roughly $4 billion. It is headquartered in Englewood Cliffs, New Jersey.

CNBC is the only NBC network whose abbreviation, while containing NBC, stands for another name: the Consumer News and Business Channel. The moniker was simply shortened to CNBC when the former was dropped.