A look into old vine wine from Lebanon

There are more than 50 producers in Lebanon but two are widely available here — Ksara and Musar

Lebanon has always fascinated me and this week I am giving my column over to this beautiful country and to its wonderful wines. I had planned this before the recent explosion that left more than 300,000 people without homes as Lebanon’s economy has been close to collapse for months.

Lebanon is a tiny country on the Mediterranean Sea just to the east of Cyprus and just 10,452 sq km in size — for comparison, County Cork is 7,500 sq km. A hot dry country with 300 days of sunshine, vines are mainly grown in the Beqaa Valley in the east of the country, home to Bedouin tribes and, these days, a huge number of Syrian refugees. The Beqaa is 1,000m above sea level which helps mitigate the heat, and vines are generally organic, dry-farmed (rainfall is rare), and hand-tended.