The cabinet crisis inches closer to its hundredth day, but in the Bekaa Valley, the North, Mount Lebanon and even Jezzine, time cannot stand still for the grapes – Cabernet Sauvignon, Syrah, Merlot and Chardonnay are just a few of the popular international varietals that will make wines consumed by devotees all over the world – that are being harvested for the roughly seven million bottles of wine Lebanon produces each year.
Like the other segments of Lebanon’s private sector, the $30 million wine industry has learned to get on with it. Its members know that government support for any industry is negligible at best, especially when it comes to the tricky subject of alcohol. And yet, wine is arguably Lebanon’s most high-profile export. The olive oil industry has failed to match the standards of excellence set by the Greeks and the Italians, but our wines sit very comfortably with the best in the world. In fact, religious considerations aside, wine is a prism through which Lebanon can sell its sense of culture, civilization, history and even what’s left of its natural beauty.
The list of countries who have transformed themselves through wine is long: France, Italy, Germany, Spain and Portugal have been doing it for centuries, and today wine is about serious national PR. Chile was a South American backwater before it unleashed its beefy reds on the world. Across the Atlantic, South African apartheid was a blot on human decency for much of the latter part of the 20th century. Now the Cape is known more for its vineyards than its sad past. And, 30 years ago, who would have ever thought that Australia, a land so long-associated with beer-guzzling machismo, would become one of the world’s leading producers of high-quality mono-cépages.
What most people don’t know is that the land that is now Lebanon was not only one of the first areas to make wine (the French were at least two millennia behind us), but that seafaring Phoenicians were arguably the first to export the stuff to their ports of call around the Mediterranean basin, where the wines from the city states of Tyre, Sidon and Byblos were among the most coveted. It is also no coincidence that the temple of Bacchus – the Roman god of wine – sits in the vinous Bekaa Valley.
But enough of the past. It is the present on which Lebanon must focus. Its potential, not just in wine but in all niche areas, has been commented upon ad nauseam. The irony is that Lebanon’s business community – never one to miss an opportunity – has always recognized and acted upon this potential. Why else would Beirut with its bars, restaurants, and boutique be the premiere destination of choice for free spending Gulf Arabs?
If the next government is serious about encouraging enterprise – and we must assume that it is – then wine, along with services, retail, and tourism in all its shapes and forms, must surely be among the vanguard sectors to shape Lebanon into the thriving entrepot it can so easily become. The will and the energy are already in place. One only has to see how the business community thrived, during what was in all probability a bumper summer, without a government.
The private sector has learned to function in isolation. This might be an admirable survival trait, but it is not ideal. A government is needed, if not to formulate a blue print for success, then at least to steer one into life.
After that traditional Phoenician instincts can take over.