Most wine history
books agree there is no doubt wine was first made in the
Middle East. Noah, Naboth, Christ, St. Paul, the great Roman
Temple at Baalbeck, are all but few of the evidence that support
this fact, Theories even exist to suggest that a large number
of red and white grape varieties were distributed as far as
Europe by the Phoenicians from what is now Lebanon, and are
ancestors to many of the grape varieties today.
The Easter Mediterranean was the France of the ancient world.
In the Middle Ages, the wines of Tyre, Sidon, and the Bekaa
Valley in modern Lebanon, were among the most expensive and
sought-after in the world. This continued until the eighth
century when wars stormed over the region and winemaking became
a scarce practice. In the nineteenth century, after Phylloxera
destroyed Europe's vineyards, the Easter Mediterranean witnessed
a new boom in winemaking.
And so it was that in 1888, Jibran Elias Touma established
one of the first wineries and distilleries in Lebanon in the
small town of Kab-elias in the Bekaa Valley to produce wine
and Arak the national Lebanese drink.
Continuing in the family tradition of his father and his
grand fathers, Dr. Dargham Elias Touma has combined the winemaking
art of his heritage with a PhD in food and beverage science
specializing in the "Grand Vin", the high quality
wines that age.
Thus was the birth of "HERITAGE", a new class of
Lebanese Wine. |