Lebanon, vignerons: “we are strong and tough like our vineyards. For this, wine is good here”

Already in 3000 bc, Phoenicians brought the love of vine and wine to that land. It was a population of seamen and merchants operating along the Mediterranean Sea, and that would have laid the foundations for the commercial trade, which then was retaken by the Greeks and Romans. It’s a civilization of artisans and farmers, who were little inclined to war, and who lived in city-states, located in the territory of today’s Lebanon: it’s a territory hit by the bombardments against Hezbollah, a Shiitic Islamic movement and party, which is arranged there, following the escalation of violence during the war between Israel and Palestine in the Middle East. In this dramatic and unsteady context, also the local world of wine has to deal with the running events, and WineNews has contacted some of the major wine producers of that country directly in order to understand the difficulties that they are facing.
In Lebanon, 80% of the national wine production is situated in Beqaa Valley, a geographical area located around the city of Baalbeek, where most vineyards of the country are present, and which is 80 km far from the capital Beirut. The harvest – they report us – was completed just in time (the first Israeli raid on Beirut dates back to September, 30, ed), and even the cellars have been spared by the bombs for the moment: but with the Horeca blocked off, the biggest critical issues concern sales. “We began the harvest a few days earlier than usual because of the weather, finishing in mid-September. The bombs did not hit us luckily, but the local market dropped by 90% - Gaston Hochar, heir and director of Château Musar, one of the most ancient and prestigious wineries in the world, told us - our company has always been export-oriented, and since 1990, we sell beyond the border 80%-85% of our production. This helps us, now as it did in the last years, when Lebanon coped with economic problems, the Covid-19 pandemic, and the explosion in Beirut harbor in 2020. We are managing to get by, but the numbers of sales abroad are not so encouraging”.
What is evident, of the Lebanese people and the voices collected by WineNews, is a great sense of resilience:“we are a strong population who has already lived similar situations, and we seek to get the best out every time, in order to feel joy and happiness. We are strong and resilient as well as our vineyards, and for this reason, we have a good wine”, Talal Madi, the Ceo of Ixsir, tells us. The name of the winery derives from the transliteration of the Arabic word “elixir”, because the founders, in 2008, gave the winery this name to give it “that sense of a product that would grant eternal youth and love to anyone who drank it”. Its vineyards are located in the city of Batroun, 52 Km far from Beirut, alongside the coast, and, therefore, more peripheral than Beqaa Valley. “We have been lucky with the harvest because we harvested all the grapes before the bombing started - Madi keeps on – sure, half of the country is closed, and, therefore, a very strong drop in the volume of our sales is registered, and also the distribution is very complicated. And yet, it will sound strange, but from a qualitative point of view, this is one of the best years we have ever had. White wine is a wine of character, it is aromatic and very promising, and also red wine seems to be special”.
In the last century, political crises and conflicts did not facilitate the work and Lebanese wine industry development. Many vineyards were destroyed or abandoned, but Château Ksara is one of the few realities that still has an ampelographic base with vines more than 50 years old: the winery has its headquarters in the city of Ksara, in the heart of Beqaa Valley, and 51 Km far from Beirut. It was built by Jesuits in 1857, with vines exported by France throughout the colonies in Algeria. If the local trade does not run, we have to focus on the export, Elie Maamari, the export manager of the company, explains: “wine production in Lebanon is still anchored to our history, since our ancestors: Phoenician seamen. More than 3,000 families live here thanks to the wine industry. We have to let our wine production to keep on growing, by promoting the products of our land. I have just got back from a very positive business trip in Canada, where I closed some deals, and I noticed a great deal of proximity, empathy and appreciation both in buyers and consumers. This gives me hope”.
The situation of Cremisan winery, in Bethlehem, on the Israel-Palestine border, whose events and history we have repeatedly reported on (as in this video dating back to 2020, that seems to be of another era, ed), is different. Cremisan winery has been hit by the violence of the war, mainly concerning the harvest phase: “our grapes come from the vineyards of local farmers, but many of them can’t even access to their vines – as told to WineNews by Fadi Batarseh, the enologist and director of the winery founded in 1885 by the Salesian Fathers, as dream of peace connected also to wine – there are soldiers blocking the roads and some land has even been set on fire. They want to intimidate farmers, mainly in Palestine, to take possession of their plots of land afterward”, Batarseh explains, by confirming what he explained us only few months ago, before the war in the Middle East spread even more. Compared to Lebanon, for Cremisan, the war began on 2023, October 7, already more than a year ago: “by that moment, we are blocked - Batarseh explains – 70-80% of our income is based on local trade, the rest is connected with the export. But that percentage vanished in one day. Last year, we managed to harvest, and we collected 230 tons of grapes, this year only 30. A huge amount of wine of last year is unsold, the wine barrels are still full. Also our Salesian mission is affected by this situation: we can’t fire workers, we have a lot of expenses and no earnings”. As according to Lebanese Château Ksara, one of the strategies implemented by Batarseh is to look more at the export than at the import. But how is wine coming from a war zone sold? “There are a lot of people, who want to help – he explains – and, in the meantime, our wine encloses much history. If also quality is considered, then people are more likely to buy. For the moment, we are exporting only to the USA, Germany and Norway regularly, and to Italy and China sporadically. Therefore, we have to create new markets”. This is always difficult for anyone, in any situation. And, it is even more difficult, if there is war, and not peace, around the vineyards.