Edmonton Journal

Syrian winemaker grows on despite civil war

- HENRY SAMUEL

PARIS — Chateau Bargylus is on the wine menu of some of London’s finest restaurant­s including Heston Blumenthal’s Dinner, L’Atelier de Joel Robuchon and Gordon Ramsay.

Reaching the Michelinst­arred establishm­ents of the world might seem par for the course for a top Bordeaux or Burgundy, but for a bottle of Bargylus it is little short of miraculous.

That is because it is the only internatio­nally recognized wine in the world produced from grapes grown and picked in Syria — a country wracked for the past four years by a horrific civil war, and where for most the main goal is staying alive, not sipping Syrah.

Despite the difficulti­es, Bargylus last week became the first Syrian wine to be exhibited at the Vinexpo wine fair in Bordeaux — the world’s largest, which this year was opened by French president François Hollande — placing Syria well and truly on the wine map.

The feat is all the more remarkable because in many parts of the country, those found drinking any kind of alcohol — let alone a boutique red — face 100 lashes or worse from ISIL fighters and other jihadist groups seeking to create a self-styled caliphate.

The Domaine de Bargylus comprises 12 hectares of vineyards on a tree-lined plateau in the Mediterran­ean province of Latakia, northwest Syria — some 900 metres into the hills above the country’s largest port. The Romans used the same verdant slopes of what used to be called Mount Bargylus — now Jabal Ansariya — for their own wineries two millennium­s ago, as did the Greeks and Phoenician­s.

“Today, it must be the most difficult wine to produce in the world and probably the most dangerous,” said Sandro Saade, a Syrian-Lebanese 38-year-old who runs the wine estate along with his brother Karim, 41.

He should know. Last June, two stray mortars tore through one of his vineyards, pulverizin­g 15 plants of the domain’s prized Chardonnay.

“We don’t know where they came from, but probably from a village around three kilometres away controlled by ISIS kind of people,” said Karim. “The situation is not great, we have to admit, but we have no choice but to continue.”

Workers took cover again last August when government forces and rebels clashed within 100 yards of the farm. Thankfully there were no casualties, just a few bullet holes in fences, and the fighting appears to have moved off.

“We have been lucky. We are in an area that is relatively preserved — most of the time,” Sandro said.

The Saades, a Christian family with a wine-growing history, planted grape vines in Latakia in 2003, well before Bashar Assad’s repression of anti-government street protests in 2011 prompted civil conflict. They produced their first vintage in 2006.

Their grandfathe­r had owned land there confiscate­d in 1960 by Egypt’s Nasser regime when it briefly took over Syria. Returning was not just about winemaking but reclaiming roots in what the French call “terroir” — the local soil — in a region increasing­ly hostile to Christians and other minorities.

“Wine ties you to the land,” said Karim. “You cannot just pack up and leave.”

The Syrian coastal mountain range is the heartland of Assad’s Alawite community, and the wine estate is an hour’s drive to Qardaha, hometown of the Assad family. Should he lose Damascus, the President may retreat here, and possibly seek to establish a breakaway Alawite state.

Although last month an explosion in the port killed four, the province has largely been shielded from the war, protected by the Syrian military’s most formidable units.

Despite this, neither Saade brother, based in neighbouri­ng Lebanon, has set foot on the wine domain in four years due to the risk of being kidnapped on the roads crossing the Syrian-Lebanese border.

Wine making in a wartorn country is not just lifethreat­ening, it is a logistical nightmare.

The brothers rely on 35 local workers, from “Muslim, Alawite and Christian families, a little bit of everybody. The people who work at Bargylus are open-minded and have no issues with that. Most people want to live like (they) did before the war,” Karim said. Staff are in constant contact with the brothers in Beirut. The tricky part, however, comes with the approach of harvest time, when the brothers need to taste the grapes for maturity.

The only way to do so is to ferry the fruit on ice in a taxi across the border to Beirut, a trip that should take four hours.

“But there have been many cases when the taxi couldn’t get through and had to go back and fetch a new batch, either because the border was closed or due to a security issue either side,” Sandro said. Bottles, corks and labels take months to import from France. Once the wine is vinified and boxed, it takes 45 days or so to ferry it to Antwerp, Belgium via Egypt’s Port Said.

The land itself is not easy to work. The limestone, flint and clay terrain is tough on the tractors, and there is a lot of wind.

Despite all the challenges, the brothers insist the winemaking that goes into producing 45,000 bottles annually matches top-notch Bordeaux or California­n estates, using techniques that are “close to biodynamic.”

“The difference here is we do it in the middle of nowhere.”

So far, this year’s grapes are doing well. “We had some frost, but we’re OK and the next two months will be crucial,” Karim said.

For a war-ravaged country in the sweltering Middle East, he said his biggest fear was that most British of blights: rain.

 ?? HUSSEIN MALLA/ASSOCIATED PRESS/FILE ?? Syrian businessma­n Sandro Saade tastes Bargylus red wine at his office in Beirut, Lebanon in 2014. Despite bloody conflict and the threat of Islamic extremists, he is determined to produce world-class wines from his family’s vineyard in Syria.
HUSSEIN MALLA/ASSOCIATED PRESS/FILE Syrian businessma­n Sandro Saade tastes Bargylus red wine at his office in Beirut, Lebanon in 2014. Despite bloody conflict and the threat of Islamic extremists, he is determined to produce world-class wines from his family’s vineyard in Syria.

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