Málaga The rediscovery

The golden era of Málaga wines was lost to history, but intrepid winemakers are exploring the region's mountainous extremes anew

- STORY SARAH JANE EVANS MW

Two hundred years ago, long before it became the buzzing holiday resort it is today, Málaga meant wine. Made from Moscatel and Pedro Ximénez and named after the region's hinterland mountains where the grapes were grown, the internationally famous 'Málaga mountain wine' was as highly regarded as Sherry (from the Cádiz province, further west). Yet today the wines of Málaga are scarce in the city's fine wine lists, with some rare exceptions that I'll be featuring in the pages that follow.

The arrival of the destructive vine-root louse phylloxera in 1878 spelled the end of the then-buoyant Málaga wine industry. Rather than struggle on, it was easier for growers to abandon many of the distant and difficult to manage mountain vineyards - olives and almonds were a much more straightforward crop to plant lower down.

New enthusiasm

While the Romans knew all about the wines of the region, by the 20th century Málaga wine had disappeared from view. However, in an exciting turn of history, a new generation of vine-growers and winemakers - some local, some from elsewhere - are now waking the region from its sleep. The future is particularly bright - even if some of the finest vineyards are in places that are as difficult to get to and work as ever. If you want a great holiday with sunshine, history and fine wine, then Málaga is the place to go (see 'Travel', p76). For wine lovers outside Spain, it should be high on the wish list, because a number of the most interesting wines have limited distribution in export.