Lebanon - wines
There's a problem with Lebanon. Most people don't even realise that it makes wine, and those who do recognise it for one thing only: Chateau Musar. To be sure, the Lebanese industry owes Serge Hochar and his crew a massive debt for the way they carried the torch for the industry throughout the war-torn 1980s, but there are actually three decent-sized wineries in the country - Chateau Ksara and Chateau Kefraya are the others - and all make decent stuff.
Looking at Lebanon's latitude - about level with Spain's southern tip - you might think that it's too hot to make good wine. But go there in winter and you'll soon discover what makes it possible.
The Lebanese coast, including Beirut, is basically a thin strip, not much more than a couple of miles wide. But head inland and very soon you're snaking up the vertiginous 2,000m Mount Lebanon range. The land drops on the other side into the Bekaa Valley, but it's still 1,000m up. Across the Bekaa, the land rises 2,600m to the Ante-Lebanon mountain range and the Syrian border. So the Bekaa is high - so high that it is covered in snow for the whole of February, while surrounding mountains are cold enough to provide a genuine ski season. There aren't many vineyards that are 10 minutes from the piste, but it gives you some idea of how the temperature drops with the altitude. It is this moderating influence that makes the production of good wines possible.
For sure, at 6m bottles a year, production is not enormous, but it's grown 40% in the last five years, and the industry is optimistic. Ksara, for instance, has spent $12m on modernising its winery in the last decade.
The French influence in Lebanon is shown in its grape varietals. Although there are some unusual local varietals, the best wines tend to be made with the likes of Cabernet, Carignan, Chardonnay et al. The summer sun can be brutal during the day, but from 35°C in the afternoon, it can drop by 20° at night, which helps to preserve structure in the wines. Indeed, at a recent wine event in London, one taster mistook a Lebanese Cabernet for a classed growth St Estèphe.
These are not, in other words, wines in the New World mould, with enormous up-front fruit, but food wines with power and no small elegance. They also have the significant advantage that few have made it into mass distribution yet, nor, with volumes relatively small, are they likely to. In fact, for most Lebanese wineries, their strategy is to move out of purely Lebanese eateries and into the wider restaurant scene. Good story, reasonable prices and food-friendliness. They're worth a look.
