Marsovin, another major winery that never abandoned girgentina and gellewza, is experimenting with sun-drying gellewza to give the grapes more energy, as the Italians do with Valpolicella for Amarone.

Marsovin exploits gellewza’s potential with its 1919, a wine that is smooth and ripe, medium-bodied and lightly kissed with oak. It more than hints at the grape’s potential. The winery also produces a lighthearted gellewza that is fruity and fizzy and bears the label Maltese Falcon. (Somebody had to do it.)

Tests of both local grape varieties have shown that they are vitis vinifera, the noble family that includes chardonnay, syrah and virtually all the other varieties that are turned into wine. But no one seems to know their exact origins. Malta’s archaeology includes ruins that predate Egypt’s; wines have been made there for millenniums. There are theories that these grapes were originally brought by the Phoenicians. Until the 1990s, they were the only grapes grown on Malta and Gozo.

For decades, the Maltese drank imports, either French or Italian. The wines that were vinified locally depended on grape juice from Sicily. Winemakers also bottled bulk wines imported from Italy.