Massaya breaks viticultural records in Bekaa

Lebanese winery Massaya has planted the highest vineyard in the country as well as Lebanon’s first Vermentino grapes according to the producer’s chairman Sami Ghosn, who visited London this week.

The record-breaking vineyard, planted last year with Chardonnay, is situated at 1600-1700m in the Bekaa Valley, while the country’s first Vermentino vines, also planted last year, are found at the slightly lower altitude of 1,200m.

Speaking to the drinks business, Ghosn explained that he chose to plant Vermentino because “we like it” but also because of the grape’s historical connections with Lebanon: Corsica, where the grape is widely planted, “was once a Phoenician colony and there’s a good chance the grape came from Phoenicia to Corsica”.

Referring more generally to the conditions for grape growing in the Bekaa he said, “It is very easy to make wine in Lebanon… we are blessed with a terroir very few can match.”

He added, “It is no coincidence that when the Romans – who had an empire stretching from Asia to Britain – decided to build a temple to Bacchus, the God of wine, they chose Baalbeck in the Bekaa, not Bordeaux, Tuscany or Rioja.”

Massaya produces 2,200 cases annually and exports to 25 countries, but primarily the US and UK markets.

The winery was founded in 1998 by Sami Ghosn and his brother Ramzi, as well as French winemakers Daniel Brunier from the Rhone’s Vieux-Télégraphe and Dominique Hébrard, former co-owner of Cheval Blanc and now of Saint-Emilion’s Château Bellefont-Belcier.

Patrick Schmitt, 20.06.2011