In the March issue of EXECUTIVE, we reported that, Lebanese wine producers exported around 2.2 million bottles of wine in 2005, a year-on-year increase of 13%.
Over the same period imports of foreign wines dropped from 977 tons in 2004 to 874 tons in 2005, a drop of 11%. The UK is once again the biggest importer of Lebanese wines, followed by France, the US and Syria. Château Ksara, Lebanon’s oldest and biggest wine producer took the lion’s share of Lebanese wine exports in 2005 with an impressive 40.5% market share of all Lebanese wines sold abroad and in doing so recorded a 16% year-on-year increase of its foreign sales. “Basically we sold 1 million bottles abroad,” said managing director Charles Ghostine, who cited Syria and the UK as the main growth markets with year-on-year growth 50% and 30% respectively. The winery’s mid priced red, Reserve de Couvent, again proved to be the motor behind the export surge making up 38% of all Ksara’s international sales.
And it is all down to one man.
Dreams
Export manager Elie Maamari is enjoying a rare moment in his Beirut office. On the wall is his winemaking degree from the University of Toulouse and his Chevalier D’Ordre du Merite Agricole from the French government for services rendered. Across from his desk is a map of the world on which Maamari has placed pins in every country where Château Ksara has a presence. “My dream is too fill as much of that map as I can. We are in 23 countries, but we should be looking to China, Taiwan and Hong Kong. Did you know that in China they planted 50,000 hectares in one year? This is out of this world!” When you stop to consider that Lebanon has at most 1,700 hectares under wine vine, it is easy to see why Maamari is in awe.
It is mid-January and he has just returned from the two-day Decanter Fine Wines show in London. “Most of the people who come to the stand they have only heard of [Château] Musar,” says the man who began his career at Ksara in the accounting department in Beirut in 1978. “They come looking for something else and they are pleasantly surprised. I tell them it’s a different process of vinification, fermentation; it’s a different wine altogether. I tell them if they are looking for Musar, they won’t find it here.” He pauses. “Don’t get me wrong, Musar is a unique wine. You won’t find a wine like it anywhere in the world.”
Maamari enjoys seeing the reaction on people’s faces when they first taste Ksara. He is supremely confident in his wines that he knows it is just a matter of spreading the word. “Mostly they were pleasantly surprised by the quality to price ratio of the Reserve du Couvent, but they were also impressed with the Château Ksara 2001 and 2002, the Cuvée Troisième Millénaire and the Chardonnay. They come to taste one or two wines and end up staying for the whole range.” He laughs. “When people stay, it’s a good sign."
In the UK, Château Ksara has proved that, like Massaya and more recently Château Kefraya, joining forces with an established distributor, in this case the House of Halgarten, is crucial to breaking into the $14 billion UK market, one that could finally establish Lebanon as the ultimate boutique producer.
And Maamari is bullish. “This year exports are beginning to show,” he beams. “Halgarten agreed to our marketing plan. I asked for 10% growth and they promised 25% and I am sure they will do it. Now we are in more than 90 English restaurants and wine bars. We are moving beyond the Lebanese restaurant sector. That said, we are present in every Lebanese restaurant in London, Oxford and Brighton. The important thing is that are they re-order and they are. We are really very optimistic.”
Restaurant trade
And he should be. Lebanese food has proved to be the best ambassador for Lebanese wine. It is the third most popular ethnic food in the UK, a position it has reached through offering vegetarian dishes in an age of healthy eating and national paranoia over the dangers of eating beef. Château Ksara is the house wine at Noura and Marroush, which has 17 restaurants in London. “Marroush takes 6,000 cases (72,000 bottles) from me each year. On each table he has a special wine list with the history of Ksara on one side and the history of Marroush on the other. All 11 of our wines are on it. Sure there is another, separate wine list, but who wants it when you have all the Ksara range.”
Maamari admits that it is slightly more difficult to break into the off-trade, although there are signs that a Lebanese wine might eventually make it onto the coveted supermarket shelves. “We are focusing on [leading UK supermarket chain] Waitrose. They like the Reserve, but it takes time, as much as two years, to get a decision. What we have on our side is that, unlike many new world countries, Lebanon does not have thousands of producers and we can offer value for money, if we can sell in the £5.99 ($10.50) range.”
Ksara’s announcement that it will increase production to 2.7 million bottles over the next four years will not have come soon enough for Maamari’s customers. “Demand is already exceeding supply and I am notifying my suppliers that I am already out of Chardonnay 2004, while this has been the case with the Reserve du Couvent for two months now.”
Currently Ksara’s fourth biggest market, Maamari believes the UK will eventually take the top slot, overtaking Syria, France and the US. “The French market is defined by the Lebanese on-trade,” he explains. “There are 122 restaurants in France and not more than 50 in the UK, but there are fewer opportunities in the off-trade. Of the other markets, Sweden is a loyal customer. “My agent orders like clockwork. He takes a container every 40 days.”
Sentimental attachment
Maamari was appointed sales manager after he spent three years in France studying wine making. He admits that he was reluctant to leave his beloved wine making (a job he had fallen into during the war when Ksara’s French wine maker was absent for long periods). “It was like changing careers, but there are choices to be made and decisions to be taken. However, one thing was certain: I was convinced by the quality of the wines and I knew we would make progress when European consumption increased. My first job was to hit the Lebanese restaurants and convince them to move away from selling cheap Bordeaux just because it came from Bordeaux.”
Spreading the gospel to those who can influence wine drinking is another challenge. Château Musar still looms large in the consciousness of many a wine critic. “It is not easy to convince the big names such as Tom Stevenson, Jancis Robinson and Oz Clarke that there are other wines than Musar, but we are getting there slowly. They have the power to sell wines. They are celebrities they have newspaper columns.”
Still the good news is that Lebanon’s strength lies in its relative rarity. Maamari admits that he had no idea how much wine the rest of the world produced until he went abroad. “It’s strength is its rarity. Halgarten finds it easier to sell Lebanese wine than Australian because there is so much competition. They consider us a jewel in their crown.”
Sitting in his office, Maamari can look back with pride on a remarkable journey in wine. “It has changed my life. And wine is a great communicator. When wine people are gathered you can sit down with someone and talk for hours about wine and then you realize you don’t even know his name. When I joined Château Ksara I could have been joining any company. Wine meant nothing to me. In fact I nearly joined Sohat. Now I am a trained oenologist and a member of the French oenologist committee and the French association of oenologists. I am also a permanent member of the OIV wine tasting board. Winemaking remains my first love. Whenever, I go to Ksara I feel sentimental. Remember, I worked there for 11 years.”
