“This year’s overall lower temperatures especially the mild summer months, gave us ideal temperatures and the weather permitted a long maturing season, ideal for grape growing. This is surely bound to reflect in some great quality wines for next year,” announced Louie Camilleri, general manager of Camilleri Wines during a media visit to the vineyards of one of Camilleri Wines’ vine growers at Mizieb close to Manikata.

The event, which was also attended by Chris Ciantar, Permanent Secretary at the Ministry for Rural Affairs and the Environment, hosted a number of journalists who were invited to pick grapes in the traditional method and were also given a brief overview of this year’s harvest. Artists Anna Galea, Tonio Mallia, Celia Borg Cardona, Kenneth Zammit Tabona and Andrew Borg were invited to paint the vineyards in Mizieb and enjoy the vendemmia atmosphere first hand. “This year, the winery will be pressing a total of 305,000 kilogrammes of grapes harvested from all their contract vineyards around Malta and Gozo. The first wines to go on the market in December will be some of the white varieties, but only after the respective wine samples will have undergone the necessary tests for DOK approval in Italy at the Enoteca in Siena,” said Mr. Camilleri.