Vin du Liban
There was a bottle of Lebanese rose on the wine menu of the pub on Old Street. I hopped back to the table, waving the bottle at my friend and gabbling in excitement. Once I’d managed to distract her attention from the barman’s bum, I explained to her why I was so elated.
I used to work in the Lebanon. If you’ve never been there, please go. It’s the most beautiful place I’ve ever seen, and people are unfailingly hospitable. As you wonder along Beirut’s crowded corniche of a soft and springlike Sunday morning, you can watch the old men fishing peacefully from the rocks below, or playing chess in the shade of a beach umbrella. Under the palms, the pretzel sellers push their carts, and couples walk arm in arm, a slow romantic promenade. Far off in the distance, above the rising blocks of flats, the mountains range, stately and snow capped. You can be up there in just a few hours, snowball fighting amongst the ancient cedars.
It’s a country of hidden idylls. Bcharre, the birthplace of Khalil Gibran, is a treasure trove of mind-boggling views, situated on the edge of a huge chasm, the terraced edges of which are a miracle of agricultural perseverance. Countless small streams and waterfalls reveal themselves within the wild vegetation. Small, whirling flocks of blue butterflies cluster around tiny flowers. Flock of goats graze under olive trees. There are even a couple of hermits hidden in the hills. The air is so fresh it hurts.
One of my favourite things was sitting on the castle walls in Tripoli, watching the boys train pigeons over the tiled roofs of the ottoman old town, and listening to the bustle of the market below. The pigeons wheel and turn on the tiniest flick of the red flags, eventually being brought into land.
Anyway, I used to take my groups wine-tasting on the edge of the Bekaa Valley. We’d troop down out of the mountains, and wander up to the vineyard. They never minded uncorking a few bottles, so we would sit getting gently drunk. Then we’d all go and spend a fortune in the shop. Especially if you were me, and had to look forward to a week of traipsing through the oenophile’s nightmare that is Syria.
It’s difficult enough to find Lebanese wine at the best of times, and to find one from my very own pet vineyard made me deeply happy with nostalgia.
So we drank it*, against the backdrop of a very fine looking barman. And it was good.
*Yes, yes I know. No more booze. Frankly, I failed.