Browse the full food and drink calendar for every confirmed event.
The Delicata Classic Wine Festival
The grandest and best-known wine festival in Malta, the Delicata Classic Wine Festival is held across several evenings in August at the Upper Barrakka Gardens in Valletta. The setting alone makes it worth attending: a formal baroque garden perched on the bastions, with panoramic views over the Grand Harbour and the Three Cities, widely considered one of the most beautiful public spaces in the capital.
The format is simple and generous. Entry is free, and once inside you buy wine glasses and tokens which you exchange at the Delicata stalls for pours across their local and international range. Live music plays through the evening, the atmosphere is convivial rather than formal, and as the sun sets over the harbour it becomes one of the most enjoyable nights of the Maltese summer. It is popular with locals and visitors alike, so arrive earlier in the evening if you want a good spot along the bastion wall.
Emmanuel Delicata is one of Malta's oldest and largest winemakers, and the festival has become a fixture of the island's August calendar. If you attend only one wine festival in Malta, this is the one.
The Malta International Wine Festival
Earlier in the summer, the Malta International Wine Festival runs across several days in June at the Argotti Botanic Gardens in Floriana. Where the Delicata festival focuses on one great Maltese producer, this event takes a broader, more international approach, showcasing wines from Malta and from wine regions around the world in one place.
The Argotti Gardens setting is another beautiful one, a historic botanic garden that gives the festival a slightly more relaxed, exploratory feel. It is an informative and educational event as much as a social one, a good choice for anyone who wants to widen their palate and taste grapes and styles from across the globe without leaving the island. Between this festival in June and the Delicata festival in August, wine lovers visiting Malta in summer are very well served.
The Gozo Food and Wine Festival
For a different flavour, the Gozo Food and Wine Festival in June brings the smaller island's wine and produce together at It-Tokk Square in Victoria, the heart of Gozo's capital. Gozo has its own distinct winemaking tradition, and the festival pairs local wines with Gozitan food specialities in a more intimate, village-square setting than the grand Valletta events. It is well worth timing a Gozo day or overnight around it, and the ferry crossing is part of the pleasure.
Malta's wine country
Beyond the festivals, Malta and Gozo have a small but serious wine industry worth exploring independently. The islands' indigenous grape varieties, Ġellewża (a red) and Girgentina (a white), produce wines you will not easily find anywhere else in the world, and several estates offer tastings and vineyard visits year-round.
Producers such as Marsovin, Delicata, Meridiana and the boutique Gozitan estates have built a reputation well beyond the islands, and a vineyard visit makes an excellent counterpoint to the festivals: quieter, more educational, and a chance to understand the volcanic and limestone soils that give Maltese wine its distinctive character. If you are visiting outside festival season, a winery tour is the best way to get to the heart of Malta's wine culture.
When is the best time for wine festivals in Malta?
The wine festival season runs through the summer, with June bringing both the Malta International Wine Festival and the Gozo Food and Wine Festival, and August bringing the flagship Delicata Classic Wine Festival in Valletta. A visit between June and August catches the best of them. Outside those months, the wineries themselves remain open for tastings and tours year-round, so there is always a way to enjoy Maltese wine whenever you visit.
Planning your visit
The GoGather food and drink calendar lists every confirmed wine festival, food festival and market with dates, venues and prices, updated every week. For the wider picture of Malta's food and drink events, see our complete guide to Malta's food festivals, and for the most beautiful settings to enjoy a glass, our local's guide to Valletta points you toward the Upper Barrakka Gardens and the best of the capital.