STAFF REPORTER
THE Majorcan wine producers, Macià Batlé were celebrating their harvest festival yesterday in Santa Maria del Cami.
There were some tasty pickings after all the hard work provided by Sebastian Rubi and Ramon Servalls, owner and managing director of this company which has been acknowledged internationally by wine critics, and received several awards for its quality produce.
Punctually, around 100 invited guests arrived at 9am at the headquarters of Macià Batlé in Santa Maria and then set off for the country estate where all the merry-making was to take place - Sa Torre in Santa Eugenia. Alongside the vines, both Servalls and Rubi posed for a photocall, cutting the grapes from the stem with a traditional knife in use for generations, the trinxet.
Servalls claimed that there was 15 percent extra volume harvested this year from all the vines. He said that as it had rained a great deal this year, the vines were well watered, resulting in an abundant harvest. The picking, explained Servalls, is done according to grape type - chardonnary, merlot, prensal, chirac, manot negro and cabernet.
Guests at the harvest festival celebration were treated to all manner of the finest quality foods, based on pan amb oli (farmhouse bread drizzled with virgin olive oil and rubbed with ramillet tomatoes and course marine salt), topped with sobrassada (Majorcan sausage) or finest local cheese, all washed down with the finest Macià Batlé wine.