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<div style='border:none;border-bottom:solid windowtext 1.0pt;padding:0pt 0pt 1.0pt 0pt'>
<p class=MsoNormal style='border:none;padding:0pt'><i><font size=2
face=Verdana><span style='font-size:10.0pt;font-family:Verdana;font-style:italic'>Something
refreshing for a change,<br>
L.</span></font></i></p>
<p class=MsoNormal style='border:none;padding:0pt'><font size=2 face=Verdana><span
style='font-size:10.0pt;font-family:Verdana'> </span></font></p>
<p class=MsoNormal style='border:none;padding:0pt'><font size=2 face=Verdana><span
style='font-size:10.0pt;font-family:Verdana'> </span></font></p>
</div>
<p class=MsoNormal style='margin-right:0pt;margin-bottom:3.75pt;margin-left:
0pt'><b><font size=5 face="Times New Roman"><span style='font-size:20.0pt;
font-weight:bold'>Where Conflict Raged, Lebanon Now Tends Its Vineyards </span></font></b></p>
</NYT_HEADLINE>
<p class=MsoNormal style='line-height:125%'><font size=2 face=Verdana><span
style='font-size:10.0pt;line-height:125%;font-family:Verdana'><a
href="http://travel2.nytimes.com/2005/10/16/travel/16lebanon.html?pagewanted=1">http://travel2.nytimes.com/2005/10/16/travel/16lebanon.html?pagewanted=1</a><br>
</span></font><font size=2><span style='font-size:10.0pt;line-height:125%'><img
border=0 width=583 height=300 src="cid:image001.jpg@01C5D1C7.957420C0"></span></font></p>
<p class=caption3><font size=2 face="Times New Roman"><span style='font-size:
10.0pt'>Massaya in the Bekaa Valley is among the newer players in the Lebanese
wine county, which boasts a number of well-established vineyards that produce
respected labels.</span></font></p>
<form>
<p class=MsoNormal style='line-height:125%'><font size=2 face="Times New Roman"><span
style='font-size:10.0pt;line-height:125%'><span style='display:none'><INPUT TYPE="hidden" NAME="Title" VALUE="Where Conflict Raged, Lebanon Now Tends Its Vineyards"></span><span
style='display:none'><INPUT TYPE="hidden" NAME="Author" VALUE="By LEE SMITH"></span><span
style='display:none'><INPUT TYPE="hidden" NAME="ContentID" VALUE="http://www.nytimes.com/2005/10/16/travel/16lebanon.html"></span><span
style='display:none'><INPUT TYPE="hidden" NAME="FormatType" VALUE="default"></span><span
style='display:none'><INPUT TYPE="hidden" NAME="PublicationDate" VALUE="OCT 16 2005"></span><span
style='display:none'><INPUT TYPE="hidden" NAME="PublisherName" VALUE="The New York Times"></span></span></font></p>
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<p class=MsoNormal style='line-height:125%'><b><font size=2
face="Times New Roman"><span style='font-size:10.0pt;line-height:125%;
font-weight:bold'>By LEE SMITH</span></font></b></p>
</NYT_BYLINE>
<p class=MsoNormal style='line-height:125%'><font size=1 face=Arial><span
style='font-size:8.5pt;line-height:125%;font-family:Arial'>Published: October
16, 2005</span></font></p>
<p style='line-height:15.6pt'><font size=4 face="Times New Roman"><span
style='font-size:12.5pt'><!--NYT_INLINE_IMAGE_POSITION1 --><NYT_TEXT>AN hour or
so east of Beirut - and a world away from some of the most daunting traffic
jams in the Middle East - is one of the region's most impressively beautiful
landscapes. This is the Bekaa Valley, Lebanon's wine country nestled between
the Lebanon and Anti-Lebanon mountain ranges. It's a sort of Levantine Napa,
where gentle stony slopes are framed by tall peaks and grapes are terraced
halfway to the top of the ridge. </span></font></p>
<p class=MsoNormal style='line-height:15.6pt'><font size=4
face="Times New Roman"><span style='font-size:12.5pt'><a
href="http://travel2.nytimes.com/2005/10/16/travel/16lebanon.html#secondParagraph#secondParagraph"><span
style='display:none'>Skip to next paragraph</span></a><img border=0 width=184
height=211 src="cid:image002.jpg@01C5D1C7.957420C0"></span></font></p>
<p class=caption4><font size=2 face="Times New Roman"><span style='font-size:
10.0pt'>Harvest at Chateau Ksara. </span></font></p>
<p style='line-height:15.6pt'><a name=secondParagraph></a><font size=4
face="Times New Roman"><span style='font-size:12.5pt'>I'm sitting with Michel
de Bustros, managing director of Chateau Kefraya, a top Lebanese winemaker,
taking in the sun as we finish a long lunch at Dionysus, Kefraya's restaurant. </span></font></p>
<p style='line-height:15.6pt'><font size=4 face="Times New Roman"><span
style='font-size:12.5pt'>It is a typically Lebanese feast that begins with
assorted meze, like tabouleh, hummus and a fried cheese dish, then moves to
another course of grilled meats and fish and finishes nicely with a choice of
pastries invariably filled with pistachios and drenched in honey. Then there
are the wines, including Kefraya's majestic Comte de M, a cabernet sauvignon,
syrah and mourvèdre blend whose '96 vintage earned a 91 (outstanding) rating
from Robert Parker's Wine Advocate. </span></font></p>
<p style='line-height:15.6pt'><font size=4 face="Times New Roman"><span
style='font-size:12.5pt'>Wine regions around the world, from Napa Valley to
Bordeaux, have long attracted tourists eager to wander among inviting vineyards
and sample their favorite wines at the place of their inception. And the Bekaa
Valley seems to be no exception.</span></font></p>
<p style='line-height:15.6pt'><font size=4 face="Times New Roman"><span
style='font-size:12.5pt'>"We get everyone," Mr. de Bustros says.
"Plenty of foreign tourists stop by, but also a lot of native Beirutis
come over to enjoy an afternoon outing. We even have writers who come out here
and work on their laptops."</span></font></p>
<p style='line-height:15.6pt'><font size=4 face="Times New Roman"><span
style='font-size:12.5pt'>October, when the harvest shifts into high gear, is
among the best times to visit, but Mr. de Bustros says local residents often
head out to the Bekaa even after the weather turns cold.</span></font></p>
<p style='line-height:15.6pt'><font size=4 face="Times New Roman"><span
style='font-size:12.5pt'>"It's fine to be here in winter," he says.
"When those mountains are capped with snow, the sun's filling the valley
and we're still sitting here enjoying a long lunch."</span></font></p>
<p style='line-height:15.6pt'><font size=4 face="Times New Roman"><span
style='font-size:12.5pt'>Most of the six million bottles produced annually by
Lebanese winemakers are consumed domestically, and much of what is sold
internationally is destined for Europe, where Lebanon's best-known wine,
Chateau Musar, has a small but elite following. </span></font></p>
<p style='line-height:15.6pt'><font size=4 face="Times New Roman"><span
style='font-size:12.5pt'>Lebanese wines, says Michael Karam, a Beirut native
and the author of "Wines of Lebanon," are "arguably the
country's only legal world-class export." They are not that easy to find
in the United States, though a number of American restaurants and wine shops
carry top Lebanese wines. </span></font></p>
<p style='line-height:15.6pt'><font size=4 face="Times New Roman"><span
style='font-size:12.5pt'>Of course, Americans who want to visit the source of
these wines may understandably be put off by the political situation. While
popular nonviolent demonstrations last spring helped end 15 years of Syrian
occupation of the country, Lebanon, an Arab nation composed of Christians and
Sunni and Shiite Muslims, is not quite free from turmoil. Since the murder of
the former Prime Minister Rafik Hariri in February, the tiny country of less
than four million people has been rattled by a string of assassinations and
bombings. </span></font></p>
<p style='line-height:15.6pt'><font size=4 face="Times New Roman"><span
style='font-size:12.5pt'>Mr. de Bustros well remembers the civil war years from
1975 to 1990, when several regional and international forces had a hand in the
violence. Especially 1982, when Israeli tanks were parked in the Bekaa amid
Kefraya's 740 acres. The vineyards are at least 50 years old, but the winery
opened in 1979, when the war was well under way. </span></font></p>
<p style='line-height:15.6pt'><font size=4 face="Times New Roman"><span
style='font-size:12.5pt'>It was perhaps an odd moment to embark on a business
venture whose natural exigencies were at odds with the chaos of war. But the
grape has been a key part of the region's history for several millenniums.</span></font></p>
<p style='line-height:15.6pt'><font size=4 face="Times New Roman"><span
style='font-size:12.5pt'>Lebanon's viticultural tradition even predates Jesus'
first mircle. Some contend that Qana, about a two-hour drive south from Beirut,
was the place where he is said to have turned water into wine. But right in the
Bekaa Valley, the ruins at Baalbek, one of the country's most famous tourist
attractions, include a Roman temple devoted to Bacchus. </span></font></p>
<p style='line-height:15.6pt'><font size=4 face="Times New Roman"><span
style='font-size:12.5pt'>Baalbek is a half-hour drive from Chateau Ksara,
another of Lebanon's famous wineries, and the oldest (Mr. Karam calls it the
"establishment face of Lebanese wine"). In 1857, Jesuits planted
vines there and thus began modern viniculture in Lebanon. The Jesuits
discovered a grotto thought to have been used by the Romans, which is where
Ksara's wines are stored today. </span></font></p>
<p style='line-height:15.6pt'><font size=4 face="Times New Roman"><span
style='font-size:12.5pt'>One of the newer vineyards is Massaya, run by Sami and
Ramzi Ghosn, brothers in their late 30's. They were living abroad - one in Los
Angeles, the other in Paris - when they returned after the civil war to reclaim
their parents' property, which was occupied by squatters.</span></font></p>
<p style='line-height:15.6pt'><font size=4 face="Times New Roman"><span
style='font-size:12.5pt'>"Some we were able to buy off, and some were less
accommodating, so we brought in a bulldozer," Ramzi Ghosn says over lunch.
</span></font></p>
<p style='line-height:15.6pt'><font size=4 face="Times New Roman"><span
style='font-size:12.5pt'>He pours a number of wines for me to try, including
the highly rated 1999 Massaya Reserve, a blend that is half cabernet sauvignon
and half mourvèdre, and apologizes for serving guacamole. "I know it's not
Lebanese," he says, "but I really love guacamole, and the avocados
were all grown in the Bekaa as well." </span></font></p>
<p style='line-height:15.6pt'><font size=4 face="Times New Roman"><span
style='font-size:12.5pt'>That sort of willingness to experiment and borrow is
characteristically Lebanese and apparently a Massaya trademark. If Kefraya is
the chicest and Ksara the most traditional of the Lebanese wineries, Massaya is
the hippest. </span></font></p>
<p class=MsoNormal style='line-height:15.6pt'><font size=4
face="Times New Roman"><span style='font-size:12.5pt'><a
href="http://travel2.nytimes.com/2005/10/16/travel/16lebanon.html?pagewanted=2#secondParagraph#secondParagraph"><span
style='display:none'>Skip to next paragraph</span></a><img border=0 width=184
height=122 src="cid:image003.jpg@01C5D1C7.957420C0"></span></font></p>
<p class=caption4><font size=2 face="Times New Roman"><span style='font-size:
10.0pt'>Massaya vineyard. </span></font></p>
<p style='line-height:15.6pt'><font size=4 face="Times New Roman"><span
style='font-size:12.5pt'>A smaller estate, (not all its grapes are home grown),
Massaya has a grittier feel - part industrial, part rustic. Its restaurant, Le
Relais, serves Lebanese country cuisine along with Massaya's famous arak, an
anise-flavored alcohol also made from grapes. Chateau Musar's grapes mostly
come from the Bekaa, but it is the country's only major winery not in the Bekaa
Valley but rather some 20 miles north of Beirut on Mount Lebanon. Still,
because the owners, the brothers Serge and Ronald Hochar, are credited even by
their peers for putting the Levant on the map, it's a must on any Lebanese wine
tour. </span></font></p>
<p style='line-height:15.6pt'><font size=4 face="Times New Roman"><span
style='font-size:12.5pt'>"Musar is an enigma," said Mr. Karam.
"To many wine buffs, Serge Hochar is a genius who produces one of the
great wines of the world, and he is feted everywhere. Other, equally
knowledgeable, wine people will dismiss his wine as a throwback to an older style,
yesterday's wine, if you like."</span></font></p>
<p style='line-height:15.6pt'><font size=4 face="Times New Roman"><span
style='font-size:12.5pt'>As Serge Hochar guided me through his simple and
austere chateau, I tried to conceal the lingering effects of a cold, which did
not escape his attention. As I blew my nose, he reassured me: "You'll be
able to taste this one I guarantee you." </span></font></p>
<p style='line-height:15.6pt'><font size=4 face="Times New Roman"><span
style='font-size:12.5pt'>It had all been leading up to this. First, he had me
sample the different varietals that go into his wines, while concealing the
exact percentages. "Why should I help someone else figure out what we
do?" he said. </span></font></p>
<p style='line-height:15.6pt'><font size=4 face="Times New Roman"><span
style='font-size:12.5pt'>And then it was time to taste the results in various
vintages of the Chateau Musar red, including the 1995, one of the treasures of
Lebanese wine, even if he contended that it was still years from its ideal
state. Miraculously, it was the wine itself that healed me. </span></font></p>
<p style='line-height:15.6pt'><font size=4 face="Times New Roman"><span
style='font-size:12.5pt'>In a sense, it is wine that has healed Lebanon and
always has throughout its history. As Ronald Hochar explained, "In
Lebanon, making wine is a matter of time and faith." </span></font></p>
<p style='line-height:15.6pt'><strong><b><font size=4 face="Times New Roman"><span
style='font-size:12.5pt'>If You Go</span></font></b></strong></p>
<p style='line-height:15.6pt'><strong><b><font size=4 face="Times New Roman"><span
style='font-size:12.5pt'>Getting There</span></font></b></strong></p>
<p style='line-height:15.6pt'><font size=4 face="Times New Roman"><span
style='font-size:12.5pt'>The closest airport is Rafik Hariri International
Airport in Beirut, a little more than an hour from the central Bekaa Valley. A
recent Web search for October fares found prices starting around $935 round
trip from New York, but travel agencies specializing in Middle East tours, like
Oriental Travel in Brooklyn, (718) 624-3001, often offer much better prices. </span></font></p>
<p style='line-height:15.6pt'><font size=4 face="Times New Roman"><span
style='font-size:12.5pt'>Major rental-car companies have locations at the
Beirut airport and around the city. Or you can take a taxi the region from
Beirut for about $25. There are few actual street addresses in the Bekaa
Valley, so be prepared to ask for directions - and more than once. </span></font></p>
<p style='line-height:15.6pt'><strong><b><font size=4 face="Times New Roman"><span
style='font-size:12.5pt'>Visiting the Wineries</span></font></b></strong><font
size=4><span style='font-size:12.5pt'> </span></font></p>
<p style='line-height:15.6pt'><font size=4 face="Times New Roman"><span
style='font-size:12.5pt'>While the harvest season - now under way - is perhaps
the best time to visit, all major wineries are open year-round for tasting and
tours. </span></font></p>
<p style='line-height:15.6pt'><font size=4 face="Times New Roman"><span
style='font-size:12.5pt'>Chateau Kefraya,, the most scenic of Lebanon's major
wineries, is in the town of Kefraya, about 13 miles south of Chtaura. The tour
and tastings are free, but you should call for reservations at the chateau's
Dionysus Restaurant, where a meal is about $40 for two, including wine and
arak. (961-8) 645-333 or (961-8) 645-444; <a
href="http://www.chateaukefraya.com/kefraya1.html" target="_">www.chateaukefraya.com/kefraya1.html</a>.
</span></font></p>
<p style='line-height:15.6pt'><font size=4 face="Times New Roman"><span
style='font-size:12.5pt'>Chateau Ksara is just over a mile south of Zahle. Its
tour, which winds through its famed cave, is free, as are the tastings from 9
a.m. to 4 p.m. (961-8) 813-495 or (961-8) 818-254; <a
href="http://www.ksara.com.lb" target="_">www.ksara.com.lb</a>. </span></font></p>
<p style='line-height:15.6pt'><font size=4 face="Times New Roman"><span
style='font-size:12.5pt'>Massaya is on the Tanail Property about two miles from
Chtaura on the Damascus Road. Tours and tastings are free, but reservations are
required at the vineyard's excellent rustic restaurant, Le Relais, which costs
$44 for two, including wine and arak. The winery is surprisingly
child-friendly, with swings and a playground and nanny-service on request for
about $20 a day. (961-8) 510-135; <a href="http://www.massaya.com/wine.htm"
target="_">www.massaya.com/wine.htm</a>.</span></font></p>
<p style='line-height:15.6pt'><font size=4 face="Times New Roman"><span
style='font-size:12.5pt'>Chateau Musar is 40 minutes north of Beirut in the
mountain village of Ghazir. This is the country's most acclaimed winery, and
its décor is austere and simple. Tastings and tours are by appointment at no
charge. (961-9) 925-056 or (961-9) 925-127; <a
href="http://www.chateaumusar.com.lb" target="_">www.chateaumusar.com.lb</a>.</span></font></p>
<p style='line-height:15.6pt'><strong><b><font size=4 face="Times New Roman"><span
style='font-size:12.5pt'>Where to Stay</span></font></b></strong><font size=4><span
style='font-size:12.5pt'> </span></font></p>
<p style='line-height:15.6pt'><font size=4 face="Times New Roman"><span
style='font-size:12.5pt'>Grand Hotel Kadri, Brazil Street, Zahle; (961 8)
813-920; <a href="http://www.grandhotelkadri.com" target="_">www.grandhotelkadri.com</a>.
A top-end hotel that is centrally situated; $137 a night</span></font></p>
<p style='line-height:15.6pt'><font size=4 face="Times New Roman"><span
style='font-size:12.5pt'>West Bekaa Country Club, Kherbit Kanafar, just over a
mile north of the Kefraya winery; (961 8) 654-601; <a
href="http://www.wbccbekaa.com" target="_">www.wbccbekaa.com</a>. There are
plenty of activities, including swimming, tennis, horseback riding, skeet
shooting and archery. Rates are $90 a night Monday to Thursday; $120 on
weekends.</span></font></p>
<p style='line-height:15.6pt'><font size=4 face="Times New Roman"><span
style='font-size:12.5pt'>The Palmyra in Baalbek is a 30-minute drive north from
Chtaura. (961-8) 370-230. An Ottoman-era hotel built in the 1870's, it is
opposite the ruins at Baalbek. Famous guests have included Bismarck and de
Gaulle. Rates are $53 a night.</span></font></p>
<p style='line-height:15.6pt'><font size=2 face=Verdana><span style='font-size:
10.0pt;font-family:Verdana'><a
href="http://travel2.nytimes.com/2005/10/16/travel/16lebanon.html?pagewanted=1">http://travel2.nytimes.com/2005/10/16/travel/16lebanon.html?pagewanted=1</a></span></font></p>
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