Does Maltese Wine Age?

For a bottle-aged Maltese red, it was priceless. Its vintage was 1999, making it almost 20 years old, and although it looked a bit frail, the wine in my glass had remained so unharmed from the ravages of time that I was reluctant to believe in its age until I read the four digits out loud for myself.

But there is more. Besides this very first bottling of Delicata’s Gran Cavalier Syrah, my tasting session included bottles of the wine’s consecutive 2000, 2001 and 2002 vintages. A historic flight!

I’ve always appreciated the unforced honesty and fine nature of this iconic label and of other Maltese wines in their youth. But, in the cobwebs of my mind, one question has been nagging me for a while.

Wines such as Bordeaux, Burgundy and Barolo have a long arc of evolution. Hundreds of vintages prove it. We now know that, if made conscientiously, even wines once thought not to age, like Beaujolais, Muscadet and even rosé, can surprise with their capacity to evolve. Experts’ tasting notes back this up.

But how about locally grown wines; can they too last in bottle? 

My hunch has always been that our finest, especially the barrel-matured red ones, have ageing potential. After all, when still young, the wines show that they’ve got what it takes: backbone or structure provided by ripe tannins and propulsive vivacity, concentrated flavours and balance.

Old Maltese wines are a rare find. So, this time capsule of four bottles could offer a unique insight and help validate my judgement. Unfortunately, the 2002 was a rather neutral tasting wine. It wasn’t faulty but it had lost its pleasurableness. Storage conditions may well have taken their toll. 

Luckily, the cork of the maiden 1999 was intact. The wine’s colour was dark red with a clear ruby rim; after almost two decades in bottle, its nose opened up into a fragile bouquet of cacao, truffle and tobacco. 

Although this bottle would ideally have been enjoyed years earlier, it was an interesting discovery. Surprisingly, the very first vintage ever of Delicata’s Gran Cavalier Syrah showed virtually no signs of oxidation (a natural process that eventually spoils wine that has been stored for too long).

The 2000 and 2001 vintages had survived too. Like with most really old wines, if you set out to look for faults, you’re bound to find something to complain about. But these two bottles were not marked by ill smells of wine gone off either.

Was there any fruit left, though?

Their originally purple colour had turned to a deep, red bean hue and the bouquet of both wines was more pronounced than that of the 1999 vintage. For their age, they were still lively with a broad palate, no longer upfront but developed.

The 2000 was the glossier, fruitier of the two, whereas the leathery scented 2001, freighted with more oak, showed desirable black olive and grilled meat flavours, which typify the Syrah variety. 

These treasures would have offered more drinking pleasure five to 10 years ago. The point is, though, that not one vintage was a brown-coloured oxidised disappointment. While each bottle took a different evolutionary path, each one had kept reasonably well.

Hence, I offer the intuitive guidance that at least certain premium red wines of Malta, like Delicata’s long-living Gran Cavalier Syrah, have the potential to age well in bottle for 10 years and even more.

This article by Georges Meekers was first published in the Times of Malta on 07/06/19.