"Wine in Lebanon" Past & Present by Mr. Elie Maamari
Posted by Adib Mounla
on Mar 24, 2015
Mr. Charles Ghostine -on behalf of Ksara Winery- received the Paul Harris Fellow Pin from P Lina Shair President of the Rotary Club of Beirut Cosmopolitan. Then Mr Elie Maamari Oenologist and export manager at Chateau Ksara talked about: “Wine in Lebanon : Past & Present”.
Mr. Maamari explained how the wine industry started in Mesopotamia, then spread to the Phoenicians and later boomed with the Greco Roman era. Mr Maamari talked about the UVL (Union Vinicole du Liban), an organization that takes care of wine industry in Lebanon as well as the National Wine institute created 2013. In numbers, the Lebanese wine industry is spread over 3000 Ha of which 62% in the Bekaa and 24% in the North. There are 39 wineries In Lebanon and 8 million produced each year (of which 38% by Ksara) divided as follows 68 % red 17% white 14% rose 1% sweet. The Bekaa has 17 Caves and Mount Lebanon 11 caves. The Success of the Wine Industry in Lebanon is due to the exceptional Micro climate, Temperature, quality of rainfall, no need for irrigation as the fact that snow is a natural pesticide. Then Mr. Maamari talked about the Ksara Winery and its 158 years of winemaking.