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Yahoo! My Yahoo! Mail More Yahoo! Services Account Options New User? Sign Up Sign In Help Yahoo! Search web search Home Singapore Asia Pacific World Business Entertainment Sports Technology Asia Pacific World No sour grapes for Lebanon's wine-making monks AFP - Wednesday, February 10 Send IM Story Print A Maronite monk checks the colours of the "Adyar" organic wine at the reserve of the Kfifan monastery in the Batrun mountains, northeast of Beirut. With faith on their side and blessed harvests, Lebanon's Christian Maronite monks have injected a touch of modern marketing savvy into their age-old wine-making tradition to launch the country's first certified organic wine. KFIFAN, Lebanon (AFP) - – With faith on their side and blessed harvests, Lebanon's Christian Maronite monks have injected a touch of modern marketing savvy into their age-old wine-making tradition to launch the country's first certified organic wine. Emblazoned with a cross, their wine bottles recently hit stores under the label Adyar, the Arabic word for monasteries, catching the eye of connoisseurs. "Wine is mentioned in the bible and Jesus gave it symbolic meaning by turning water into wine," said Brother Hanna Ghantous, 39, who oversees the winery at Mar Moussa, one of eight monasteries involved in the Adyar project that was launched in 2003. "So what we are doing is not unusual," the black-robed monk sporting a long, dark beard told AFP. "Of course, some would say we are assisted by divine intervention, but our aim is not a commercial one," Ghantous said. "Adyar has a spiritual aim, which is to work the land and provide jobs for the local community. That is how I look at our wine." The 18th-century monastery of Mar Moussa, built over the remains of an old sanctuary, sits atop a hill surrounded by pine trees, lush green fields and vineyards in the Metn region east of Beirut. Though Ghantous appears an odd figure amid the wine vats and bottles stacked in the caves underneath the monastery, he adroitly holds up a glass of the latest cuvee, waxing poetic about its qualities. His keen interest in wine-making has won him an invitation to Australia later this month for a four-year study of viniculture. Farther north at the 7th-century monastery of Kfifan, located in the region of Batroun and identified with Saint Hardini, Lebanon's third Maronite saint, Brother Joseph Bou Faysal, 29, supervises the wine making. "Of course, we put a bit of our spirituality, some prayer into our work," he said. "We offer people something real, something good, we give them something from us." French oenologist Frederic Cacchia, who oversees production at Adyar, said that the wines stand apart for being organic, and because they come from grapes grown outside the Bekaa Valley, the heartland of Lebanon's wine industry. "People always associate Lebanese wine with the Bekaa, but we are proving that there can be diversity," he said. "We are exploring other regions and showing that you can make wine outside the Bekaa," Cacchia added. The eight wine-making monasteries are located in different regions across the country, giving each wine its own distinct flavour. "The same grape variety is going to have a different expression from one monastery to the other," said Cacchia. "At Kfifan the vines are grown at an altitude of 400 metres (1,300 feet), whereas at Mar Moussa they are grown at a 900-metre (3,000-foot) altitude," he said. Cacchia said he asks that each new harvest be blessed by the monks. He then lets the wine, priced between 14 and 18 dollars a bottle, do the talking. Though Adyar was started in 2003, until late last year when it hit the shops, the wine was made in limited quantities and sold at the monasteries. "We do not use any pesticides or chemical products and have very little disease because of the good climate conditions," Cacchia said. Production now stands at 45,000 bottles, but Cacchia hopes to raise that to 150,000 bottles within two years, and to begin exporting. While the religious aspect of Adyar may draw curious customers, Cacchia hopes that quality will be the wine's final selling point. "Of course, some people will see this as a blessed product, but that won't sell 145,000 bottles," he said. "We are banking on quality." And the competition is stiff, with some 33 wine makers vying for a slice of the Lebanese market today, compared to about five following the end of the country's 1975-1990 civil war, and about 15 in 2004. "The fact that the monks have been very enterprising and have blown the Maronite cross onto each bottle will give that added cache both to people here and abroad," said Michael Karam, who authored an award-winning book on Lebanese wines in 2004 and is working on a new guide coming out later this year. "This is a wine that has improved a lot in the last six years, and it is a wine that will have a huge following among the Lebanese diaspora, who tend to be nostalgic for all things related to this country," Karam told AFP. "People will be drawn to it because it's got a unique story, and everyone likes a story behind a bottle of wine." 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