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Delicata customises new refrigerated fermentation hall
The 2015 grape harvest will always be a memorable harvest at the Delicata winery, as the grapes pressed were the very first grapes to be fermented in the company’s brand new, customised, refrigerated, white wine fermentation unit, which has just been constructed.
Temperature controlled stainless steel tanks located within the Delicata winery’s new refrigerated white wine fermenting hall
Delicata, an independent family run winemaking company, now proudly boasts of two fermentation halls. Its state-of-the-art main fermentation hall with its ‘cathedral’ of stainless steel tanks which was inaugurated in 2009 and this latest winemaking facility activated in August 2015.
The main hall is mainly used for grape pressing and red wine production, equipped with specialised ‘pump over’ vats and ganimede tanks of various sizes. Delicata’s latest technical breakthrough, however, is a customised refrigerated hall that houses white wine fermenting and storage tanks together with new oak barriques.It is not just the individual stainless steel tanks that are temperature controlled, it is the whole refrigerated fermentation hall.
This latest technological winemaking initiative has been evolving since the last harvest finished in September 2014, and was completed exactly in time for this year’s harvest. This innovative unit houses stainless steel tanks of varying sizes, allowing the winemaker to separate, ferment and store single ‘boutique’ vineyard wines of selected grape varieties from specific areas.
The temperature controlled hall also houses new 225 litre French and American oak barrels that will be used for white wine fermentation and red wine maturation.
“This latest development is the 3rd phase of an investment plan which we initiated almost seven years ago,” a Delicata spokesperson said.
“The result of our ‘winemaking facility overhaul’ now hosts a separate grape receiving and quality inspection area, an eco-friendly main fermentation hall and all the technologically advanced winemaking equipment required to operate it efficiently, and finally this new refrigerated white wine fermentation unit; a total investment of millions of euros.”
The first grapes to roll into the these facilities (Chardonnay and Sauvignon Blanc) arrived at the Delicata Winery on the Waterfront on 6th August and will keep rolling in up until mid-September, by which time Delicata would have pressed over 1 million kilos of grapes from approximately twenty different grape varieties including Vermentino, Viognier, Moscato, Merlot, Syrah, Cabernet Sauvignon, Gellewza, Girgentina and many more. All hand-picked and selected, from some 380 family run vineyards, spread throughout Malta and Gozo.
