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Friday read: The forging of a Lebanese hero

Mention Lebanon to regulars on the international wine circuit and they might ask “Oh Lebanon! Do you know Elie?”

After the late Serge Hochar of Chateau Musar, he is the most visible and arguably the most influential person in the Lebanese wine industry in the last half century, be it at trade fairs, symposiums or competitions. What people may not appreciate is that his genial persona is underpinned by a solid sub-strata of grit and determination forged in the furnace of the world’s most challenging winemaking regions. Indeed, his has been a job that nearly cost him his life.

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Maamari began his wine journey as a young accountant in Château Ksara’s back offices but during the 1975-90 civil war all that changed when Noel Rabot, the French winemaker, was forced to leave due to the fighting. It was all hands to the pump and Elie found himself in a strange new job.

“I knew nothing, but [Noel] gave me the books and I read and I learned,” he said during a recent trip to London. “I learned about temperature control, density control and how to judge the phenolic maturity by tasting the grape. He told me what he needed for the update reports and left me to it. Funnily enough, I wasn’t overwhelmed. I discovered a passion.”

With Maamari in place, Rabot could return to the Bekaa twice a year (at the beginning of harvest and in spring for the blending), but even then, he wouldn’t stay for the whole vinification period as he had to get back to the vines in France where he was now working. But he took the trouble to train his pupil as best he could. He and Maarmari made trips to France’s various wine regions. “There I learned more about wine, about filtration, sedimentation, fining, the basics of blending and so on. I had no formal training at all. Nothing. Nothing. Nothing. I had deviated on a totally new path. I eventually told [co-owner and general manager] Jean-Pierre Sara that I wanted to work in the Bekaa Valley full time. My fate was sealed.”

Amid the mayhem of war, Elie Maamari’s daily commute was far from straightforward. “During the Israeli invasion of Lebanon in 1982, the only way I could get to the winery from Beirut was to prove I lived in Sofar, the resort town on the way to the Bekaa Valley.” This he was able to do, because Sara had a house there and he arranged for Maamari to be issued with a pass that allowed him to go through their checkpoints with relative ease.

But it was also nearly the end of him. In the fog of war, scores could be settled. “Someone wanted to get rid of me, so they tipped off Syrian intelligence that I was somehow collaborating with the Israelis. I was stopped in my car and taken to the village of Anjar, then the HQ of Syrian intelligence in Lebanon. I was locked up for two-and-a-half days, but it felt like two-and-a-half years. They wanted to take me to Damascus. If that had happened, that would have been it for me, but luckily I was released after the timely intervention of family and friends.”

In 1990, Lebanon’s Civil War dragged on to its messy conclusion and it was also decision time for Maamari, who by then had been involved in the winemaking for more than ten years. “When [French winemaker] James Palgé joined us, I went to Toulouse to study viticulture and winemaking for three years. When I came back I was asked to be export manager by the new chairman. He convinced me I could do more good for the winery in this role. Do I miss it? Yes, I miss the winery terribly. I miss the smell of the fermenting vats. I lived it every day.”

Since then, Elie’s life has taken him all over the world, from China to California and South Africa to Sweden. Chateau Ksara is sold in nearly 40 nations and, along with the iconic Chateau Musar, is the most recognizable Lebanese wine in the world.

“We still have huge challenges,” he admits. “You can make good wine, but you also have to sell it. I travel 150 days each year, crisscrossing across the globe, to share the wines and story of Château Ksara but even after more than 30 years, many people still do not associate Lebanon with wine even though we have a huge viticultural heritage and make wonderful diverse wines made with over 30 varieties.”

It is down to Elie, as well as a new generation of winemakers, that Lebanese wine is in the best place it’s been in. No longer an ethnic curiosity to wash down a mixed grill, Lebanese wine is very much at home on the indie shelves and has taken up residence in some of the UK’s finest wine lists, especially those that cater to committed carnivores such as the Guinea Grill and the Boisdale Group, where owner, Ranald Macdonald was so enthused by the idea of Lebanon that he commissioned Chateau Ksara to make him a red and white Bekaa Valley Special Cuvée.

“The message is getting across,” smiles Maamari. “It’s slow work, but I do it because I love wine and I love my country.”

• Lebanon
• winemaking
• Lebanese Wine
• Elie Maamari
• Chateau Ksara