Taste like a sommelier at Meridiana

Meridiana's tour teaches you how wine is made. Part three teaches you how to taste it. This is the Malta wine tasting game part of the estate: sit on the terrace, ask Clara to pour, and learn to say what's in the glass.

Pour me a tasting

A tasting costs €5 and pours four of the estate's wines, one after another. You taste each glass the way a sommelier does, in four steps:

1. Look. Tilt your phone to tilt the glass over the white card on the tasting table, then tap where its colour sits on the scale: pale straw, salmon, ruby or purple. Young reds go purple at the edge; older ones turn brick.
2. Swirl. Circle your finger to swirl the glass, then watch the legs run down it. Slow, thick legs mean more alcohol; quick, thin ones a lighter wine.
3. Smell. Tap up to three smells on the aroma wheel, a real wheel: eighteen of them in six families (red fruit, dark fruit, fresh fruit, flowers, spice, and oak and earth). Carob is the Maltese touch.
4. Sip. Set five sliders for what you taste: sweet, acid, tannin, body and finish.

Then your five sliders sit over the winemaker's, so you can see where you were close, the right smells light up on the wheel, Clara tells you what the winemaker says, and every miss comes with a line that explains it: the colour it really was, the smells you could have found, the slider that was off and by how much. Each glass is scored out of 10, the flight out of 40. One slider a step out still counts, because tasting isn't maths.

Blind tasting

Think you've got it? A blind set costs €5 and pours three unnamed glasses. You get a hint for each (its colour, its legs and one smell), and you name its colour and grape. That's out of 6.

Bring a friend: if they've started a blind set at the estate, Clara lets you join it, with the same three glasses, and you see each other's scores. Your best blind set of the week goes on the blind-tasting board, which starts again every Monday at midnight. If two people get the same score, whoever got there first goes higher. Have a few glasses first and it gets harder: from Tipsy, one of the three smell hints goes missing.

Pair it with Luca

Luca, the estate's cook, has five Maltese dishes and three wines for each, and he's waiting at the end of your tasting. Pairing is free: drag a wine onto the dish and he tells you the rule behind the answer:

• Weight with weight: a slow-cooked rabbit stew needs a full red.
• Acid cuts fat: a fresh white with lampuki pie.
• Fresh with fresh: young ġbejniet and a cool rosé.
• Sweet calms spice: a fruity white with spicy bigilla.
• Tannin loves protein: a big red with bragioli.

Get all five right and you earn a stamp.

Your wine passport fills up

Four new stamps join the wine passport on your profile: your first full tasting, your first blind set, a perfect blind set and all five pairings. With the tour's four, that's eight of the estate's thirty. The stages run from Curious to Sommelier, and later parts add more stamps for blending your own wine and looking after a vine.

Wine and your drink level

Tasting pours are small, a third of a glass each, and they count towards your drink level a little: a flight of four and a blind set together still leave you short of Drunk. There's no tasting at Wasted; Clara will bring you water. Grape juice is on the terrace menu for anyone who'd rather not drink.

Questions people ask

How much does a tasting cost?

€5 for a flight of four, €5 for a blind set of three. Pairing with Luca is free. If you leave halfway, the glasses wait for you at the estate, and carrying on is free.

Is there a prize for the blind board?

No, just your name at the top of the week, and the bragging rights among your friends and clubs.

Are these Meridiana's real tasting notes?

The wines are Meridiana's real wines, at game prices, as in real places, real prices. The tasting notes are ours, written in the spirit of each wine. For the estate's own, see Meridiana's site.

New here? Start with what Malta Living is, then play Malta Living free.