[LCM Articles] Harvest time for wine makers in Lebanon's Bekaa Valley

[Brahim Dagher]

FROM: http://afp.google.com/article/ALeqM5hXAx4infYu4EvcZ-gV9EBs_Z0z0Q

You may see pictures at the link above.

Harvest time for wine makers in Lebanon's Bekaa Valley
55 minutes ago
KHIRBET QANAFAR, Lebanon (AFP) — Better known as a fertile ground
for drugs and militancy, Lebanon's Bekaa Valley is also gaining a new
reputation as a wine-making region increasingly attractive to vintners.More
than a dozen labels have appeared on the market since the end of the
country's 1975-1990 civil war with each vying for recognition among the
growing crop of New World wines.And judging by the awards some
of the wines are receiving at international fairs, they are holding
their ground amid stiff competition and peaking the interest of
connoisseurs."The Lebanese wine industry today produces about
seven million bottles annually out of which some three million are
exported," said Serge Hochar, head of the Union Vinicole du Liban, a
loose association of wine producers. "It is a 25-million-dollar industry out of which about 10 million dollars represent exports."That
is more than triple the receipts of the mid 1990s when the wine sector
began taking off after the devastating years of war. At the
time, the lush Bekaa Valley, known in Roman times as the breadbasket of
the world and home to a Roman temple dedicated to Bacchus, the god of
wine, was synonymous with guerrilla activity and hashish rather than
wine making."In 1975, when the war started, we were selling 97
percent of our production in Lebanon," said Hochar, whose family owns
Chateau Musar, which gained world attention at the Bristol Wine Fair in
1979. "In 1990, 97 percent of our production was being exported", mainly to Europe and the United States.And
whereas the country had some 700 hectares (1,729 acres) of vineyards in
the early 1990s, it now boasts about 2,000 hectares with more being
added annually."If you could construct the perfect wine-growing
area, it would be the Bekaa," said Michael Karam, who published an
award-winning book on Lebanese wines in 2005. "Wine-making
conditions there are perfect, because there is very little disease,
you've got 320 days of sunshine, the right altitude and the right soil."With that in mind, Lebanese wine has nowhere to go but up, added Karam."It
has still got to make its mark internationally but it already has a
very good reputation abroad founded primarily on the performance of
Chateau Musar in Britain," he said.Hochar managed to establish
his wine on the international market in the late 1970s thanks to its
quality and tales of him braving bullets and bombs to transport his
grapes from the Bekaa to his winery near Beirut."So when you
opened one of his bottles, you were getting a wine made in the heat of
conflict," Karam said. "It added an exotic note."At Chateau
Ksara, the country's oldest winery which is celebrating its 150th
anniversary this year, the 2007 season is already being toasted as
grape pickers this week finished harvesting the last vines."I
think we're going to have an exceptional year as far as the maturity of
the grapes is concerned," said Paulette Bou Moucef, in charge of the
vineyards."We had two heat waves toward the end of summer and
that's a plus for the grapes," she added, casting a proud eye over neat
rows of vines in Qanafar, where Chateau Ksara has a domain.She
said the winery, started by Jesuit priests in 1857, was experiencing
three percent growth annually with 2.2 million bottles produced, more
than half of them for export.One winery that has been gaining
attention in recent years is Massaya, which was founded in the mid
1990s by two brothers and their French partners.Their wines have quickly moved up the ranks and are now served in such posh establishments as Paris' Ritz or George V hotels.As
for Hochar, who considers himself a "wine priest", his aim is to put
his country's wines firmly on the world map and to have people think of
wine rather than war when referring to Lebanon."Some people are
not aware that we were the country of milk and honey, that we are a
very old civilisation and the epitome of civilisation is wine," he said."I advise people to drink a glass of wine a day, preferably good wine which should be Lebanese."

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