Lebanon wines bring villages back to life

BEIRUT — Lured by Lebanon’s wine making potential and nostalgia for his homeland, Maher Harb left a Paris consultancy job in 2010 and dug vines into the soil of family land unused since the country’s civil war.

Seven years later his Sept winery launched its first commercial vintage and is now looking to export as a number of European countries take an interest.

The 36-year-old is part of an expanding wine industry which is bringing life back to land abandoned during Lebanon’s 1975-90 civil war and waves of economic migration. It is also bringing Lebanese — and their money — back home.

“Giving up a career in Europe... is very hard; it is all because of how much we love this land and how much Lebanon deserves this,” said Harb, speaking in the hills above the coastal town of Batroun.

And as Lebanon wrestles with stagnant economic growth, heavy debts and political inertia, the industry’s success could serve as a model for other sectors looking to export.

Lebanon, where wine making dates back to the ancient Phoenicians, lies further south than most northern hemisphere wine-producing nations. But the mountains that rise up from its hot, humid Mediterranean coast provide the cooler, drier altitudes grapes need.

Since Lebanon’s civil war ended, a handful of wineries has expanded to around 45 commercial enterprises and a number of small-scale producers.

Global interest in Lebanon’s wines is growing, but output is low — a mere 8-9 million bottles annually compared to 5-6 billion bottles from the world’s largest producer Italy — and production costs are high.

So producers are striving to create a distinct, marketable identity for Lebanese wine based on quality, not quantity.

“Lebanese wine is already good quality, but it still lacks uniqueness,” said Harb.

“STORY TO TELL”

Producers are seeking that identity in the diversity of Lebanon’s terrain, creating wines which carry the unique taste of the small patch of soil and air in which the grape is grown.

“If you want to be competitive you have to have a signature and to show some form of your tradition... You cannot impress a guy who had the best wines on the planet with another Chardonnay,” said Eid Azar, a US-trained doctor and co-founder of Vertical 33, which grows grapes across the Bekaa valley and sold its first commercial wine in 2017.

“Each winery should have a story to tell,” he said from his tasting room in a hip Beirut street, next to a wall display of soil samples and grape names.

The wine industry’s success means the agriculture ministry wants it to be a model for improving the olive oil and arak sectors. Arak is a traditional aniseed-flavored liquor.

Producers are also looking to indigenous grapes for a Lebanese identity, moving away from imported, well-known French vines.

“People used to ask me: You in Lebanon have been making wine for more than 4,000 years, why do you use foreign grapes?” said Joe Assaad