The Naked Wines, Winemaker of the Year 2021 is… Eddy Naim

What a turn out. The polls closed at midnight last night and over 40,000 Angels have spoken.

We’re beyond delighted to announce that our new Winemaker of the Year, with a whopping 49% of the vote, is Lebanese winemaking hero, Eddy Naim.

Eddy was totally gobsmacked when we told him. There were a few tears on both ends of the phone. He asked us to share this heartfelt thank you video with you.

 We genuinely can’t think of a winemaker who this would mean more to than Eddy

2021 was a tough year for many of us. But it’s difficult to comprehend the situation that Eddy, our first Lebanese winemaker, has been living and working through, to bring you his delicious boutique wines.

The people of Lebanon have been living through extreme long-term difficulty. Political corruption and a decade of economic decline have left the country on its knees, wiping swathes of value off the local currency and leading to shortages of everything from food and medicine to fuel and electricity. 

 Just surviving was tough. But Eddy wouldn't let anything get between him and his wines

 With fuel becoming increasingly hard to come by, Eddy had no choice but to buy it in 10L plastic drinking water bottles on the roadside. He even got “a rusty 250cc motocross bike (I had never ridden one before, but learned pretty quickly though!) so I could save fuel and make it up the dirt road to the winery each day.” 

If that wasn’t enough, power stations shut down in the middle of the harvest season, plunging Eddy’s winery into darkness and leaving him reliant on a generator which he “only turned on a few hours a day to cool down the fermenting tanks before shutting them down again to save on diesel.”

 Eddy describes it as a ‘constant roller coaster ride in terms of how safe we feel’. In October, there were armed clashes between two rival groups near his kids’ school. He says “I'm constantly discussing with my wife whether it's time to move her and the kids to Europe, so that at least they could live a more comfortable and stable life.”

Despite all the turmoil, Eddy was able to bottle ‘a magnificent vintage’ in 2021 

It’s nothing short of a miracle that Eddy still found a way to make his high-end boutique wines for Angels, which are as good as almost anything you’ll taste from Bordeaux or Châteauneuf-du-Pape. 

He says “I wasn't sure whether we'd be able to finish the season but we did, and despite it all it was a magnificent vintage! I'm very happy with the result.” 

 And when he gets home each day, he still finds time to log on and chat with Angels: “It’s a source of positive energy thanks to all your heartwarming messages of support. I can't put into words how much your messages mean to us, but they are more motivating and uplifting than anything else we could receive.”

 Now he’s thrilled to make a new wine he’s always dreamed of making.

 It goes without saying Eddy was totally speechless when he heard that he’d get the backing to make a new wine for Angels. And typical of Eddy, all he cares about is making a wine that you will love…

 “I hope to live up to the title and continue producing wines Angels will love. I would like to make a Cinsault wine. I've always loved this grape which many - including me - consider to be the pinot noir of warm climate regions. It produces light and complex wines that can be sipped and pondered or when slightly more chilled can be casually enjoyed at a summer BBQ!  Best of both worlds. I will do my best to continue making the wine with love and passion that my family shares with me.”   

Eddy’s one of the most genuine, humble, resilient guys you’ll ever meet. He’s so grateful to have Angels flying the flag for his country’s little-known wines, giving a huge boost to his small family business.

"It’s difficult to state how much of a difference Angels’ support has made for my family and the other families who depend on my winery for subsistence. We have invested the last 12 years building this winery from the ground up, with a lot of sweat and tears, and its survival is hanging by a thread that is Angels’ support." Eddy Naim, Winemaker

 So please join us in wishing the biggest congratulations to Eddy. He so deserves it.