Lebanon

Population and Religion
Lebanon has 4,467 million inhabitants (WB: 2013). It is a melting pot of the three most important monotheistic religions: Christianity, Islam and Judaism. The state recognizes 16 religious beliefs, including the Jewish one. Lebanon became independent (French mandate from 1920 to 1943) from France in 1943.

Economy
The economy runs on the banking sector and on services such as tourism and catering. An important part of the national income comes from the millions of Lebanese expats. Around 38% of the country is cultivated with grain, vegetables, fruit, tobacco and olives and there is a lot of animal husbandry. The industry varies from cement to textiles, clothing, furniture, preserves and light meals.

9,000 years of wine history

7,000 BC: Lebanon lies in a triangle that is the cradle of viticulture, formed by the Caucasus (modern Armenia and Georgia), Mesopotamia (modern-day Iraq) and Palestine. For the sake of prudence, modern science assumes that viticulture originated in Lebanon. The Phoenicians cultivated the first vines along the coastal strip 5,000 years ago. Excavations at the town of Byblos have found indications for this. Wine has played an important role in the Phoenician religion. The Greek god Dionysus or the Roman god Bacchus have their origin in the wine rituals from the Canaan. In the city of Baalbek are the ruins of the Temple of Bacchus built by the Romans in the 2nd century BC in honor of their wine god Bacchus. There are many images of vineyards and wine consumption.

3,000 – 330 BC: The Phoenician traders exported their wines to Egypt, Cyprus, Greece, Rome, Sardinia and Spain; Robert Ballard, an oceanographer from the United States, found two Phoenician wrecks 750 years BC containing a batch of wine that was still intact (see: http://newsoffice.mit.edu/1999/ships-0714). The wine seems to have been protected by the Phoenicians by a layer of olive oil on the wine and then sealed by a pine wood stopper with resin.
Lebanon’s reputation for producing quality wines continued until the Middle Ages, with Tire and Sidon wines highly appreciated in Europe and traded by Venetian merchants.

1517: The current Lebanon was incorporated by the Ottoman Empire. Making wine was forbidden, except for religious purposes. This gave the Christians of Lebanon, mainly Maronites and Greek and Armenian Orthodox, the opportunity to produce wine;

1857: Missionaries of the Jesuits introduced new methods for viticulture and vinification. They planted Cinsault, from the Algerian-controlled Algeria, at Château Ksara in the Zahleh district in the Bekaa valley, making them the founder of the modern Lebanese wine industry. The French engineer Eugène François Brun founded Domaine des Tourelles in 1868.

1918: Between the two world wars, it was the French influence that promoted the culture of wine drinking. Through its role as a cosmopolitan and financial center, Lebanon experienced a golden age, creating new opportunities for a thriving wine culture. Some wineries were already active in the 1960s.
Château Nakad was founded in 1923 and Gaston Hochar started in 1930 with Château Musar.

1975-1990: Lebanon slipped into a 15-year civil war that hampered the development of the wine sector, causing a huge decline in the production of wine. After this war, the only known wine producers were Ksara, Kefraya and Musar.

1992 – present: It was only in the 1990s that viticulture was given a new impetus with the creation of Domaine Wardy in 1997, Massaya in 1998, Château Saint-Thomas and Heritage. The French influence remained great. The current peace offers new opportunities and causes unexpected growth. For that matter, the 2006 conflict did not change much in the course of new developments (except that it was harvested later than usual), even though some of the vines were missing after harvest. Massaya’s harvest was unfortunately completely destroyed. Despite – or perhaps thanks to – the disturbances, the demand for Lebanese wine increased.

Difficult conditions
The conditions under which Lebanon’s wine production takes place are not easy. In 2006, a short but fierce war with Israel raged, with tragedies on both sides and more than 1,000 deaths threatened to be lost in that year. But the worst was the civil war from 1975 to 1990. In Lebanon much was destroyed and 150,000 people were killed and hundreds of thousands injured.

Harvesting during the war
The 2006 harvest was done by office workers, cleaning staff, board members and truck drivers, as pickers were not to be found in the conflict with Israel. At Château Ksara the load of a neighbor’s tractor with new pipelines for irrigation, since for weaponry. A rocket destroyed the tractor, load and environment, causing a lot of damage to the winery. But the harvest and the vinification simply continued. Now in Beirut and in the wine regions you see countless checkpoints with armored cars and heavily armed soldiers. And the population remains positive and thinks optimistic about the future. With every war or conflict one becomes more determined

Soil and climate
All Lebanon consists of calcareous mountain ranges and a soil condition that makes it possible to produce elegant wines. Due to the dry climate during the entire flowering and ripening period of the grape, there are no harmful (fungal) diseases, so it is not necessary to use pesticides as pesticides. This guarantees the purity of the wines.

Wine areas
Bekaa Valley
The Bekaa Valley is the most important production area of ​​Lebanon. The region has dry and sunny summer months with temperatures up to 40 ° C, cool nights (10 ° C) due to the high location and regular precipitation, so no desertification takes place. In the summer a dry wind often blows from the Gulf or from Egypt. The winters are strict, with low temperatures and a lot of snowfall, but there is rarely frost damage. The area has its own natural water management, thanks to snow melt from the peaks of the Lebanon

Winemakers
Typical of the Lebanese winemakers is the fact that they dare to experiment. Although most of them have studied in France, they go a step further than the French winemakers because they use several grape varieties together.
The climate and grapes will not be an issue. The warm days and cool nights ensure that the grapes thrive. Cultivation starts from 500 to about 1700 meters altitude.