Insider Tips From One of Malta’s Finest Winemakers

Farmer, winemaker and owner of Mar Casar wines, Mark Cassar reveals everything you need to know about vino

What is the ethos of Mar Casar?
Mar Casar has a holistic approach to bio-dynamic grape growing where wild weeds and all insects interact and intertwine with the vines to create a conductive, healthy living wine.

Why have you chosen to team up with Corinthia Palace Malta?
Corinthia Palace Malta, together with the whole Corinthia collection, shares the same philosophical ideals as myself and the brand.

What is the process behind making great wine?
The process behind the making of Mar Casar wines is a minimalistic approach, whereby we avoid any synthetic additives. The prime anti-oxidant in these wines is derived through a five-week skin and grape seed contact, both on the ambers as well as the reds.

What is amber wine?
Amber wine is created when the white grape variety has prolonged skin contact, meaning the grape skins are left on. Which then creates a darker colour than white wine. The polyphenols in the wine derives from the skin, the resveratrols, anti-oxidants, serontonins, dopamines all come from the seed. Mar Casar infuses the skin as well as the seeds for a minimum of five weeks. All glucose and fructose are entirely transformed into ethanol, co2 and heat, leaving no sugar residues in the final product.

What makes Malta ideal for making wine?
Malta is particularly ideal for wine making because of the proximity to the sea and medicinal benefits associated sea air.

Tell us a little about the vineyard.
Mar Casar is a three-hectare estate, half on clay-based ground, the other limestone. Chardonnay, the hardiest of white varieties thrives best on clay, Merlot and Petit Verdot find their best habitat in white limestone. The entire estate is terraced, south east facing with contours directed towards the prevailing winds.  

Which types of food are best paired with your wine?
We believe the best pairing for our wine is great friends!

What’s your favourite item on the Rickshaw menu?
The Rickshaw menu is diverse in choice, so it is hard to select one. But, whatever you choose, the spirit of the soul is the same throughout.

How should wine be stored?
Always below 20 degrees. Upright if a screw cap and horizontal if corked. 

Do you have any interesting wine facts to share?
No part of history has ever been written by anybody drinking water.

What wine-tasting tips would you give to novices?
Do not bother with tasting notes, we taste and smell according to our reminisces, each and every person has different sensory capacities.