The blood that runs through Lebanon’s veins
Lebanese wine is receiving well-deserved praise and riding the high-profile crest of a commercial wave. You could say it’s an overnight success, but it’s a triumph that has been seven thousand years in the making.
Although traces of wine production date back to Byblos and 5000 BCE, modern viticulture began in Lebanon around 1860. Since then, a close connection with France and the favorable conditions around Batroun and the Bekaa have conspired to create an enduring tradition of exemplary and eminently quaffable wines. Despite challenging social and security conditions, many connoisseurs believe Lebanon is currently producing its best wines ever.
For many Lebanese, wine is one of the richest of national unifiers. It is a symbol of pride, delivering the character and richness of the land to cultured palates around the world.
At once elegant yet robust, sensitive yet resilient, and traditional yet avant-garde, Lebanon’s wines reflect its people.
The 2024 harvest has been successfully gathered, with many of the country’s vineyards reporting a promising future for the vintage. We have our current favorites, from whom we eagerly await their latest releases.
Batroun’s boutique Sept Winery has planted three indigenous grape varieties - Obeideh, Merweh, and Zitani – and, through its biodynamic approach, is producing astoundingly good, honest, organic wines. Available in limited production of, sometimes, under three hundred bottles, they’re well worth searching out.
We once looked down on the Ixsir winery as being overly commercial. To do so today would be grossly unfair. Its vineyards, primarily spread throughout the Bekaa Valley, produce some of the country’s finest reds (El Ixsir) and some of the world’s finest rosés (Grande Reserve).
Chateau Musar has a lengthier history than many Lebanese producers and remains a family-owned – yet progressive - winery. Using their generations of experience, the descendants of Gaston Hochar continue to pour their passion into the evolution of their headlining Chateau Musar red, white, and rosé vintages, as well as the Levantine de Musar.
Don’t only take our word for it, though. Try it for yourself. On Saturday, November 16, you can sample some of Musar’s wines at the Decanter Fine Wine Encounter at London’s Landmark Hotel. Here, you’ll see how one of Lebanon’s finest wineries stacks up next to the world’s best.
If you’re seeking to find the essence of Lebanon in a glass, this is the place to be.