Every chef and housewife will understand the importance of compatibility when it comes to the marrying of flavours in creating a food recipe. Get the blending of ingredients wrong and you can end up ruining the dish. For example dill and mustard sauce goes perfectly well with marinated salmon and apple pie and custard is a delight. But how about the other way round, Salmon and Custard anyone? Even the amounts used of each ingredient can change the style and flavour of any given dish considerably. Too much pepper or not enough salt can make the difference between producing something great or something mediocre. After a while this ‘blending’ process becomes second nature, a dash of this, a shake of that, with just a sprinkling of the other, very rarely measured out, you just get a feel for it! Especially when you are using ingredients you are familiar with, too much sugar and its sweet, too much vinegar and its sharp and too much chilli and its hot!

Well this is exactly the same for winemakers when producing a ‘blended’ wine. Most of the world’s great wines are blends of different grape varieties, each one adding a ‘certain something’ to the final wine. Each variety has a certain flavour profile and it is up to the winemaker to come up with the final ‘recipe’ for that particular wine from that years particular grapes.

At the Grand Cru Chateaux of Bordeaux they blend varying degrees (usually a well kept secret) of Cabernet Sauvignon, Cabernet Franc, Merlot and Petit Verdot whereas in Champagne it will be an assemblage of Chardonnay, Pinot Noir and Pinot Menieur. From Spain you have that famous red wine Rioja, made from blends of Tempranillo and Grenache Noir and in Italy blends of Sangiovese with Cabernet Sauvignon and Canaiolo Nero make up Chianti Classico. From Germany you have the widely consumed Liebfraumilch which usually includes Muller Thurgau, Silvaner and Riesling grapes and one of the worlds most famous red wines Chateuneuf du Pape from the Rhone Valley can be made from up to 13 different grape varieties including Syrah, Grenache, Mourvedre, Carignan, Cinsault etc.

All of these grape varieties will have an individual flavour and style depending on where they were grown and under what climatic conditions they developed under. Even the winemaking process they went through to become wine (from grape juice) will have a determining factor on the taste of the finished product. It is these styles and flavours that the winemaker will use to his advantage to produce a wine that will invariably have a completely different character than if it were made from one grape variety on its own.

In many instances this means that blended wines, like Bordeaux and Champagne can often be better, and certainly more consistent with regard to quality, than wines made from a single grape variety. The argument over Bordeaux reds versus Burgundy reds has been raging for generations as red Burgundies are made solely from Pinot Noir making them very vulnerable to annual climatic conditions whereas the Bordeaux reds are made from 4 varieties each with different ripening times.

Many blended wines are produced in Malta and award winning winemaker Delicata has  just released three more under a new brand name, Pjazza Regina, and each one is unique. An exciting new range of 2008 vintage Maltese Islands I.G.T. wines has been carefully created and consists of a collection of three sensational wines all made from creative, unique blends of Malta grown grapes at incredible prices.

The Pjazza Regina Red is a soft mellow assemblage of the two noble grapes Syrah and Merlot carefully blended with a touch of Sangiovese which gives the wine a lovely light peppery flavour. This easy drinking red wine is particularly good with red meats, rabbit, pasta dishes, pizza and mild cheeses.

The Pjazza Regina White is very fruity, fairly aromatic and has a nice