Mosques and Crosses

Just after lunch, we have dinner on a roof in Beirut. A perfect setting for learning all about the current state of the Lebanese wine industry. By Kate

Last night, I got lucky. After an all too brief stop over at the hotel after our epic lunch (which finally finished at almost 7pm), we were whisked off out again, back to the sheen of downtown Beirut and another roof top – a restaurant called Le Gray at the top of the Campbell Gray hotel which looked out directly at Hariri’s mosque – a structure everyone I met in Beirut was utterly disparaging of. He was of course the Billionaire former Prime Minister who was assassinated in 2005, blown up together with a sizeable chunk of real estate along the sea front)   It is somewhat garish, to be fair but the blue of the dome is a striking colour and the minarets are suitably lacy and Arabian night-ish. There are worse things to look at.

Apparently, a gigantic Christian cross in being built right next too it. Just so no-one gets any funny ideas.

It was a glittering occasion – the night of Sami’s father’s 75^th birthday. Everyone was very beautifully dressed except the General at the head of inland security who had somehow mis-read the invitation. He did make a point of apologising for our brief period of hostage the night before, so we forgave him his t-shirt and jeans. The setting was quite amazing.   A beautifully laid table outside in soft, warm air. I knew I was barely going to be able to eat a thing and so prayed to the god of dinner companions (who I am sure, must have been worshipped in the temples of Bacchus as well) who, for once, came up trumps.

Michael Karam is Lebanese, born and educated in England, who returned here when he was 27. He is also someone who has written two books on Lebanese wines and is a fount of considerable knowledge on the subject as well as being beautifully informative on the situation in Lebanon and the Middle East as well.    We talked wine quite extensively which was actually a lot of fun. It is very good to remember that when so much of my working life is spent not being able to explore my subject as I like to. Indigenous varieties first. L

ebanon has a local white , Obediah, used for the production of Arak but also wine. There is however no local red; the closest they have to that is Cinsault.   This, in the right hands, is capable of great things here Michael believes and I completely agree. Some of the softly scented, amazingly complex biodynamic examples which are beginning to come out of the Languedoc prove that with low yields and careful viticulture this is so much more than just a filler varietal.

Cinsault came to this country in 1857, travelling here via Algeria courtesy of the Jesuits who are an entirely practical sect – scientists as well as farmers. What they established was continued by the French after the first world war when they got the mandate for

Lebanon

and it was then that the wine making industry began in earnest although the very first modern commercial winery was Domaine de Tourelle which was founded in 1863.

The 1975 civil war stopped all of that of course and it has only really started up again in earnest in the last decade; Massaya being a perfect, early example of the new wave. Quite a few producers of Arak looked at what was happening in the new world and decided that there was absolutely no reason why Lebanon should not be welcomed onto the world’s wine stage with similarly open, enthusiastic arms. The 13 – 14 wineries which existed in the country in 2004 have in the 6 years since mushroomed into 33 and the number will continue to grow, Michael believes.

The most cheering statistic though is the fact that while the number of producers has more than doubled in that time, the actual amount of wine produced has only increased by 10%, with most producing no more than, on average, 70,000 bottles a year. Why can’t all countries be as sensible? What is unique to Lebanon is a genuinely ancient history of wine making – even if there were gaps of whole chunks of centuries with nothing going on – exciting and promising terroir and, best of all, no desire to take over the world in a tidal wave of mass produced effluent.

This is precisely the kind of sensible route in the direction of quality that needs to be happening more widely. They do of course have Ksara and Kefraya; both big wineries by anyone’s standards and both producing frankly substandard supermarket stuff but no one is utterly blameless and any country that can point to just two such offenders is not doing too badly.

What also needs to start to happen here are clearer definitions of the different terroirs, but I have no doubt that this will come. All anyone (and that includes myself) really knows of Lebanese wine regions is the Bekaa but that in itself is big enough to feature significant micro climates.    There are others though – Batroun in the south, Mount Lebanon, hovering over Beirut on the one side and the Bekaa on the other and still more to come. Micheal believes that in the near future, as the industry continues to establish its identity here, the Bekaa probably won’t be seen as the most important region in the way it is today, even if it is home to some of the most important producers.

Back to the grapes though. This spectacular roof top verandah and indeed our incredibly short time here already more than confirm Michael’s statement that the Lebanese are consumers of quality. They like the best of things and so when it has come to choosing varietals in the past 20 years, most have gone for the usual suspects – Cabernet, Merlot, Syrah etc with the often more compatible Southern Rhone varietals like Grenache and Mouvedre not getting nearly as much attention and no-one really trying to do genuinely great things with Cinsault – certainly not as a single varietal.

Massaya are an exception to this, making some very good wines from these Rhone varietals and the more they hit their stride and the vines mature, the closer they will get to greatness.

The food and the wine begins to arrive. We had started with the Massaya Rose which was what had fuelled our first evening. It really is delicious – a textural rose very much in the vein of what is produced in Provence, only with fresher acidity in the main. Ramzi thinks that the 2009 has already faded very slightly but then he is a perfectionist and knows the wine from a parent’s perspective. To me, it tastes fabulous.

The white is served next and this is pleasant surprise. A blend of Sauvignon and Chardonnay which are barrel fermented, together, Clairette from concrete and Obediah from stainless steel, this too has good texture and structure and more complexity than I remember from the last time I tasted it – probably 3 years ago now. It is a wine of some restraint which is always a positive for me although I look forward to it even more when the complexity has deepened slightly.

The food, I really can’t touch in any meaningful way at all.   Lunch still hasn’t really descended much from the top of my throat so forcing anything else down would be a physical impossibility. Michael thinks that the Silver is the real star of the Massaya range while I have always preferred the Gold

http://www.greenandbluewines.com/index.php?page=shop.product_details&flypage=flypage.tpl&product_id=453&category_id=12&option=com_virtuemart&Itemid=21

Of course, almost nothing bets the classic red for value for money and every day great drinking.

http://www.greenandbluewines.com/index.php?page=shop.product_details&flypage=flypage.tpl&product_id=118&category_id=6&option=com_virtuemart&Itemid=21

We started stocking the Gold just before last Christmas. Although this is a wine which takes it’s time in coming round, even young it shows its pedigree, with locked in layers of intensely pure fruit and hints of Lebanese spice, the latter always releasing more of its intoxicating oriental scent as it relaxes into older age. I taste them side by side and although I would agree entirely that the Silver, like the Classic, is very good value for money at the approximately £15 retail price. It has a verve to the structure which lifts it above the everyday without rendering it as serious as the Gold but I still prefer the latter.

The night moves on. We hadn’t arrived till past 9pm and dessert is not served till midnight. Again, I wonder how these people manage to get up for work in the morning. Apparently, these extended hours in the evenings are absolutely the norm here.    I am starting to feel defeated by it all though and there is the awareness that tomorrow is another full day, so two of us leave, a very gracious man and his incredibly well groomed wife giving us a lift in their Jag back to the hotel.

I am having the most ridiculously jet set time. How I will readjust to shiny cars not sweeping me from glamorous occasion to even more glamorous occasion on my return, I really don’t know. You should buy Michael Karam’s book though – he clearly knows exactly of what he speaks and this happens to be a genuinely new and exciting subject.   The Lebanese optimism and phenomenal energy has, in the blink of an eye relatively speaking, given rise to a wineries like Massaya with apparently, a host of others doing great, small scale things as well. Just think of what the future will hold.

http://www.amazon.co.uk/Wines-Lebanon-Michael-Karam/dp/0863565980/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1287387944&sr=1-1-spell

The threat of another immanent skirmish does not seem to unduly worry him either. It was ever thus.   I look over at the blue dome of the loathed mosque and say a short, quick prayer that this is the truth.

Apr May 2012 Jun

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Mosques and Crosses

Apr May 2012 Jun

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