The flavor of sassafras in wine of Mount Lebanon
Discover the of Mount Lebanon wines revealing the of sassafras flavor during the olphactive analysis (nose) and during the gustative analysis (mouth).
Lebanon is a Middle Eastern country with an ancient wine culture that has experienced a renaissance in the past few decades. In 2011, roughly six million bottles of Lebanese wine were produced from 2000 hectares (5000 acres) of Vineyards. Modern Lebanese viniculture has moved away from the ancient Phoenician port cities and inland to the fertile Bekaa Valley. There are also a handful of vineyards near Jezzine, a few miles beyond the Southern end of the Bekaa, just inland of Sidon.
The majority of Lebanese wine is exported to the UK, France and the US, where the receptive consumer bases have encouraged healthy growth in Lebanon's modern wine industry. In 1998, there were fewer than 10 wineries in Lebanon; now there are more than 30. Red wines account for most of the output; these are usually made from the classic wine grapes of southern France; Carignan, Grenache, Syrah, Mourvèdre, Cabernet Sauvignon and Merlot. White wines may feature Ugni Blanc, Clairette and Chardonnay.
The modern wine industry here can be traced back to the 19th Century. As non-Muslims living in a Muslim state – Part of the Ottoman Empire since the 1500s – Christians living in Lebanon were permitted certain freedoms, one of which was the right to make wine for ceremonial purposes. It was on this basis that, in 1857, a group of Jesuit priests founded a winery in Ksara, a small town in the Bekaa Valley, Lebanon's finest wine Terroir.
Chateau Ksara warrants its own chapter in the annals of Lebanese wine history.
How’s the weather been this year? Awful. ‘La nature m’écoeure’, one of my wine-growing friends posted on Facebook on 8 April, having been out to look at the frost-crippled shoots on his vines that morning: ‘Nature disgusts me’. It takes a lot to make a wine-grower feel that. He wasn’t alone. Jeremiads echo around the northern hemisphere as 2021 closes. It’s been the year of all the miseries. None suffered more horribly than the growers of Germany’s Ahr valley, where floodwaters caused by the fou ...
The latest edition of Liv-ex Power 100, which lists the most powerful fine wine brands, shows that the period between October 2020 and September 2021 experienced a rebalancing of the market, with a number of classic labels returning to prominence. Château Lafite Rothschild re-entered the top 10, moving from 11th to 2nd place, while fellow First Growths Mouton-Rothschild and Margaux have also risen, to 6th and 10th place respectively. Petrus also re-entered the top 10, now at 7th place after a ye ...
Charles Lamboley, marketing and communication director from Vignerons des Terres Secrètes, explains the differences between the appellation Mâcon-Villages and Mâcon plus a geographical denomination. This video is taken from the “Rendez-vous avec les vins de Bourgogne” program (March 2020). The Bourgogne Wine Board (BIVB) invites you to enjoy this video in which Jean-Pierre Renard, Expert Instructor at the Ecole des Vins de Bourgogne, explains the topographical and geological characteristics of t ...