Lebanon's Vineyards

The FT reports on Lebanon's booming boutique wine industry:

Domaine des Tourelles and Coteaux de Botrys are two very different vineyards, lying on opposite sides of Lebanon.

The former, in the eastern Bekaa Valley, is one of the country’s oldest wineries. Production was erratic during and after the 1975-1990 civil war when the vineyard was best known for its arak, an aniseed drink.

Now the Issa family, the new majority owners and managers of Domaine des Tourelles, plan to raise production from 80,000 to 100,000 bottles per year.

In contrast, Coteaux de Botrys was started near the costal town of Batroun in 1998 by Joseph Bitar, a retired general. Since his death, Mr Bitar’s daughters see it as their mission to carry on his work and to increase production from 40,000 to 65,000 bottles a year over five years.

Nayla Bitar muses on the explosion of small wineries in Lebanon. There are now eight near Batroun alone. “In 1998 people questioned my father’s wisdom of putting money in vines. Now they’re all doing it,” she says.

In the past 15 years, the number of Lebanese wine producers has exploded from five in 1995 to 33 this year – and counting.
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With a total production of just 6m-7m bottles a year, of which about half is exported, Lebanese growers can only go the boutique way, says Michael Karam, an expert on Lebanese wine whose guide detailing all 33 vineyards is due to be published later this year.

Even Ksara and Kefraya, the largest, most established vineyards, produce only 2m bottles each, small by international standards.
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The absence of economies of scale means that Lebanese wines, even from the larger producers, are relatively dear. One of the cheapest wines of one of the larger producers may sell in the UK for $14.
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Until now Serge Hochar, who heads Chateau Musar and who chairs UVL, the union of wine growers, has been one of the main promoters of the image of Lebanese wine abroad, especially in the UK where it is relatively well-known.
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The large growers feel that they have established Lebanese wines as a quality brand abroad and worry that less professional newcomers may tarnish that image.

However, a UVL proposal to set up a government-sanctioned wine institute to control quality has been stuck in red tape for years.

The smaller wine makers, on the other hand, insist that they are the real quality producers, alleging that some of the larger and older wineries use grapes from different areas of the country rather than from well-managed vineyards. Some of them favour the introduction of what is known in France as the AOC, appellation d’origine controllé, which certifies the origins of grapes.

Even so, some of the new producers acknowledge the trailblazing role that Mr Hochar has played.

“He certainly did a great job making Lebanese wines known,” says Sandro Saadé, who together with his brother Karim recently started new vineyards in Syria and Lebanon, Bargylus and Marsyas, respectively.

The Saadés are typical of some of the new breed of Lebanese wine makers who include rich expatriate investors such as Carlos Ghosn, chief executive of Renault and Nissan.
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