Dinner at Oka's at the Villa on the 28th April

For the April Qatra, I thought it would be interesting to have a comparison of only Maltese quality wines. As far as I can remember we never did this before – but stand to be corrected if someone remembers another (do tell which,, as have all the records)

The Antonin white was a safe and reliable bet as an aperitif being both good value for the quality and a crowd pleaser. I used to prefer another but lately have been disappointed with recent vintages. As for the reds, none of them are usually available outside the winery and select specialist wine and spirits shops and as you can see all received respectable votes from the diners attending.

Again, as had happened during a tasting that included both Maltese and foreign wines, the winner was the wine from Qatra member Surgeon John Cauchi who I can assure all of you was as surprised as the rest of the diners to find one of his wines was in the tasting – All the wines were obtained from a distributor to keep the theme of the tasting secret and known only to my team who I thank for keeping the secret.

However, I found pleasure in all the wines as they all presented in an interesting way and developed in the glass over the evening – the advantage of having a decent single pouring to permit this to happen. None of these wines are cheap as one assumes that there is a premium cost to what is essentially a small batch production. However, thanks to Maltese winemakers like those represented in this tasting, Malta has left behind the image that Maltese wine is cheap and cheerful plonk or made from imported grapes.

They are to be encouraged by our custom and our fair but honest critique.

Iro