Lebanon wine

Winemaking in what is now Lebanon runs back to the Phoenicians, who carried the vine and the wine trade across the Mediterranean. The claim to antiquity here is unusually well founded.

The modern industry is concentrated in the Bekaa Valley, where altitude rather than latitude supplies the balance. Old Cinsault and Carignan vines, planted when the French Mandate shaped the industry, remain a distinctive resource.

Bordeaux and Rhône varieties dominate plantings for the same historical reason, though there is renewed interest in the indigenous white varieties Obeidi and Merwah.

That production continued through the civil war of 1975–1990, in some vintages across active front lines, is a matter of record rather than romance — and it is the fact most often repeated about Lebanese wine, sometimes at the expense of discussing what is in the glass.