Lebanon is one of the oldest wine-producing areas in the world. Baalbek, at the northern end of the Bekaa Valley, even has a temple devoted to Bacchus, the god of wine, dating back to the 2nd century.
Château Musar is the Lebanese wine that attracted attention in the mid-l970s, when its beefy, garnet-hued reds reminded traditional drinkers of very old, truffley, gamey claret, and its often unsavoury, oaky, dark-golden whites were curiosities that some found to their liking.
Today much of Lebanon’s 16,000 hectares of vineyards are planted to table grapes and destined for eating or drying. Wine production, besides Château Musar, is shrinking.
Lebanon’s cool, mountainous, high-altitude vineyards have good, dry summers and sufficient rainfall for quality wine production. French wine traditions continue to rule here and Lebanon’s most successful grapes are popular red Gallic varieties such as cabernet sauvignon and merlot, enlivened with robust varieties that thrive in hot conditions including cinsault, carignan, grenache, syrah and mourvedre. White grapes are mostly ugni blanc and clairette.
The quality varies, though it is slowly improving. The cabernet sauvignon-dominant Château Musar, topped up with cinsault and carignan, is attentuated, leathery and not worth the £17.99 Waitrose charges for its 2002 vintage. The cabernet sauvignon-dominant 2007 Château Ka, Source de Rouge is much more to my liking, enhanced with a dollop of merlot and syrah, delivering plenty of fine, ripe, bold, curranty, plummy fruit — albeit pricey at £10.99 from Waitrose.