A NAPA IN THE BEKAA VALLEY...

Anita Limaye was pleasantly surprised to get a taste of the ancient wine legacy of Lebanon at the 150-year-old Chateau Ksara in the valley of vines

   WINE – the proverbial drink of the Gods! A word which evokes feelings of celebration and jubilation. And what better place to relive that exhilaration than the birthplace of this nectar of grapes — Lebanon? It is said that the ancient Phoenicians who lived along the coastline of today’s Lebanon actually spread the wine culture along the Mediterranean littoral, so the next time we quaff a nice glass of wine, we know who to thank for their existence!
   Not that we were thinking of the history of wine much as we visited this quaint wooden building — the symbol of Ksara — enroute to the magnificent Roman ruins of Baalbeck in the Bekaa Valley. It’s just that we were fascinated by the idea of a 150 year old winery being tucked away in a quiet nook of the frequently uneasy Bekaa Valley in Lebanon, within striking distance of Israel.
   The winery has an innate calm, given that it was set-up in 1857 by local Jesuit priests, presumably to provide wine for Mass. Chateau Ksara, we learnt, produced the first dry red wine in Lebanon and is quite a local favourite today. Little wonder then that the company is the country’s largest exporter of Lebanese wine.
   The noble vine, vitis vinifera is presumed to have been domesticated in Lebanon after being brought there from Mesopotamia. The Phoenicians fermented the crop and then sold the wine to Egypt at least 5000 years ago. Even ancient wrecks of Phoenician ships have been found with wine amphorae intact!
   We can safely assume that several millennia passed with Lebanese wines adding to good spirits but then history got a bit murky. Particularly with the inclusion of Lebanon into the Caliphate after the spread of Islam; wine continued to be produced even under the Ottomans but obviously there was no impetus...Until the Jesuits at Chateau Ksara, that is.
   But Chateau Ksara has a hoary heritage indeed to live up to, like all the others ranged alongside in the Bekaa Valley, which sort of makes it the Napa or Sonoma of the Middle East, if you can imagine such a parallel! Ksara, incidentally, produces around 70% of all the wine in Lebanon. Even though it is no longer owned by or connected to the Jesuit monastery (it was sold in 1972) and has had the odd bad harvest because of some surge in hostilities with Israel, it has made a name for itself with red Rhone varietals.
   The most famed of Lebanese labels is Chateau Musar, set up in the 1930s and apparently a favourite of the British writer Auberon Waugh. Chateau Kefraya and a few more, form other parts of this little Lebanese club of vignerons.
   What makes Chateau Ksara unique though is their underground caves — reportedly dug by the industrious Jesuits, but may have been a Roman relic or a remnant of the medieval Crusader castle that once stood there —to store and ferment the wines. These caves naturally control the temperature between 11-16 ⁰ Celsius. In fact, the Ksara caves of Lebanon are the only natural caves used for wine storage in the whole country and have also been voted one of the most beautiful wine cellars in the world!
   Our tour of Chateau Ksara began with a short film on the process of winemaking and then we were taken through the labyrinth of caves to see the enormous casks all lined up, filled with wines dating back to the year 2000. We could feel the change in temperature as soon as we stepped into the caves – it was really chilly inside!
   The most exciting part of the tour was the wine-tasting session, obviously! I admit that tasting around 8 to 10 wines left me with quite a heady feeling for a couple of hours after leaving! Ksara produces dry red wine and white wine, rose, sweet wine, fortified wine and brandy .
   And yes, also arak – the knock-out fermented aniseed and grape alcohol blend that is the national drink of Lebanon. The one we tried is called Ksarak from the Al Heeneh area of Mount Hermon in Lebanon, and had quite a kick!
   The red and white wines were distinctly dry as we sniffed and sipped like veterans... But they were a tad too dry for my nascent taste buds! I ended my session of wine tasting with their Sunset Rose, a sweet wine with a pleasing pink colour!
   We were told that Chateau Ksara has also won several international awards , most recently gold medals at Vinagra – The International Wine Challenge in Budapest in 2008 and at the Ljubljana Wine Competition in Slovenia in 2007. And we certainly appreciated the taste too!