Lifestyle

BEIRUT: Local anthropologist and tour operator Nour Farra Haddad has released what is arguably the most comprehensive guidebook ever on ecotourism in Lebanon.

Broken down into five color-coded sections spanning 400 pages, “Eco-Lebanon Nature and Rural Tourism: A Guide to Unveil Lebanon” is a joint project between Haddad and the Tourism Ministry, with the help of Hospitality Services. The book, a guided directory written in English, aims to promote internal tourism among Lebanese as foreign visitors have dwindled alongside security.

“The idea of the book, now especially, is to develop domestic tourism because we all know nowadays that we don’t have international tourists coming from abroad,” Haddad told The Daily Star. “Their first impression to the book is ‘Do we have all that in Lebanon?’”

The idea for the book came from Haddad’s experience as a tourism consultant, receiving constant calls from Lebanese asking where they can do certain activities.

“I thought it would be a good thing to put this data together,” she said.

Poor security and rising sectarianism has pushed Lebanese to retreat into their respective communities. That fact has caused a fear of exploring and a major challenge in the development of domestic tourism, Haddad said.

Take south Lebanon, for example, where the stigma of war and the region’s association with Hezbollah has discouraged tourism despite its wealth of natural reserves, hiking and water activities and Christian religious sites. “Unfortunately, the south is still associated with war and violence,” Haddad said. “It’s the Lebanese reality. I know we are all dreaming of moving around without these sorts of associations.”

Most, if not all, of the travel guides covering Lebanon – such as Lonely Planet or locally produced guides – target an international audience and offer a glance at the more famous and well-operated touristic sites, places such as the ruins in Baalbek or the Jeita Grotto. In contrast, “Eco-Lebanon” offers detailed contact information about activities so far off the beaten path they even surprised the writer, she said.

“When I submitted the project to the Ministry of Tourism, it was just 200 pages, but as I was working on it, I found so many things,” she said.

For example, Shebaa, an area of south Lebanon, is rarely mentioned outside the context of sporadic border skirmishes with Israel. But Haddad discovered there’s a lot more to the area than the tense Blue Line.

For example, she found the Museum of Water Mills, a historic and touristic site in one of the least-visited areas of the country. There are also hiking trails to Mount Hermon that start in Shebaa, where along the way hikers will find traces of ancient Roman religious sites such as a stone enclosure in Qasr Antar.

At the peak of the mountain is a site for Austrian U.N. peacekeepers. The book also explains that this is one of the last habitats in the Middle East with wild bears.

It’s these obscure facts that make “Eco-Lebanon” an unprecedented guide to the country. Even sections on well-documented attractions, such as the booming wine industry, include lesser-known or uncommercialized options in addition to well-known sites. For example, the book lists 53 different vintners, including monasteries and more obscure producers with private vineyards.

“Did you know that Phoenician ships are still being built in Tyre?” former Tourism Minister Fady Abboud asked in the introduction. “Did you know that wonderful hiking trips were rehabilitated by the municipalities of Daroun and Aintoura. … Did you know you can find more than 125 alternative lodgings in Lebanon as social centers, monasteries and [camp sites].”

The help of the Tourism Ministry in funding the project made it possible for Haddad to avoid advertising in the book, which as a result takes an unbiased approach to suggesting things to do. Each activity section includes options from south to north and highlights particular projects and places based on their novelty or merit only.

Lebanon’s official touristic sites are few in comparison to the many privately operated or informal activities. Agri-tourism is the largest section in Haddad’s book, for example, but its activities are some of the most underdeveloped attractions in the country.

A popular fall activity in the United States, apple picking is one of the only pick-your-own activities that are officially offered in the country, though fruit and vegetable harvesting is a year-round occupation here. The olive and olive oil season also has established pick-your-own outings, as well as press and production tours.

A sign of the book’s Lebanese audience, Haddad suggests the reader ask around to friends and family to find a generous farmer willing to give a tour of their land. If the reader’s social network is confined to city dwellers, then Haddad has listed two dozen farms, growing and raising all kinds of produce and animals, that informally welcome visitors.

The guide is best used after a careful read through. Buried in the small font and hundreds of pages are activities some may never know to look up. Without an index at the back, skimming the book and becoming acquainted with its subsections is a must if you don’t want to miss out on some of the best tips in the book’s expanse.

Readers can also hunt for obscure details by looking for a recurring caricature of an old man, who offers help information throughout the book.

Haddad was quick to point out that “Eco-Lebanon” does not include everything, and that for some subsections, her suggestions are just a selection of the options to, for instance, dine next to Lebanon’s idyllic rivers. She also said she designated the book’s offerings as ecotourism, but that she could not ensure everything was 100 percent environmentally safe or sustainable. That’s the nature of an underdeveloped industry, she said.

“We want to believe that there is still hope for tourism in Lebanon,” she said.

“The Lebanese can make a difference if you give them the tools.”

The Daily Star

BEIRUT: “You want something new? Come,” commanded Habib Karam, the owner of Karam Winery. Rather than answer the question with his own vintage, Karam hauled me through an exhibition of Lebanese wineries to his competitor Chateau Nakad.

Nakad and Karam were two of around a dozen Lebanese winemakers participating in the HORECA hospitality trade show at the Beirut International Exhibition and Leisure center since Tuesday. For the biggest gathering of the country’s food and beverage industries, local wineries enticed show-goers with their latest innovations, such as fresh, not-yet-bottled vintages and more adventurous spirits than the quintessential arak.

One such example was Chateau Nakad’s meska liqueur. “Now, this is new,” Karam said, gleaming as if he’d made it himself.

Meska, also known in English as mastic or gum arabic, is an ingredient derived from tree sap and used locally in ice creams and sweets. It’s also often used to thicken jams.

The Greeks use meska to flavor two indigenous spirits under the umbrella name mastichato, which inspired Jalal Nakad – the oenologist and heir of the 90-year-old vineyard – to invent his own meska-infused spirit several weeks ago.

Meska liqueur looks like arak and is served in the same way, with a few ice cubes. But unlike arak, which belies its confectionary appearance with the dry bite of aniseed, Nakad’s meska was as sweet and creamy as it looked, with the deep aroma of the wood from which it was sourced. The spirit is about 30 percent alcohol, from a combination of grain and grape.

“Some like to drink it very slowly as an aperitif,” Nakad said. That seemed the most suitable way to savor the very palatable spirit. He also suggested using it in a mojito-style cocktail, made with ice, mint, sparking water and citrus.

Meska liqueur was the second such dabbling by Nakad. A year ago, the winery launched a citron spirit infused with orange and clementine peel.

Back at Chateau Karam, Habib Karam disclosed his own pet project: a Cognac-style brandy that he has titled Jezzineyac. “We can’t call it Cognac, but if we call it brandy it sounds cheap,” he said. He stole the “yac” from France, as he put it, and added “Jezzine,” the town where Chateau Karam is located.

Karam’s Jezzineyac is triple-distilled, barrel-aged in French oak for two years and then rested in glass bottles for 14 years. To imbue the fortified wine with the terroir of south Lebanon, Karam uses indigenous grape varieties like miksasi, merwahi, hifawi and zawtarani, grown at altitudes as high as 1,400 meters, he said.

Other Lebanese vintners may have tried to distill and age brandy before him, Karam said, “but I’ll say this is the first commercially viable one.”

The Phoenicia Hotel hosted several blind Cognac taste tests, where – up against known French cognacs – Karam’s creation took second place. A classic winter drink, Jezzineyac is best served after dinner, with chestnuts beside a fireplace, Karam said.

After waiting more than a decade and a half, Karam is finally breaking into the vintage – about 3,000 bottles of it – which will go on sale for $105 per bottle in the next two or three weeks.

How to buy it?

“For this you’ll have to call us,” he said.

Some wineries have also turned to indigenous grape varieties, in a break from Lebanon’s French-centric industry.

Chateau St. Thomas’ team at HORECA were showing off their Obeidy wine, a white made entirely from indigenous obeideh grapes. The wine came about as part of an international project to promote the diverse range of wine that is produced in Mediterranean countries, an initiative called the Wine Mosaic Préserver.

Micheline Touma Nassif of Chateau St. Thomas said the Wine Mosaic “are working to save the local wine grapes. The obeideh grapes were taken from different areas of Lebanon.”

Made with 100 percent obeideh grapes, the white has a low alcohol content of 12 percent. Chateau St. Thomas’ newest product, it caught the eye of a wine writer for Harper’s Bazaar U.K. just this week. He described it as an “attractive light-bodied aperitif.”

“It’s also great wine for summer,” Nassif added.

Speaking of summer wines, Adyar launched its light and fruity rose, L’Aube, this weekend. Adyar is a collective of seven wine-producing monasteries that specialize in double-certified organic wine.

Made from mourvedre and syrah grapes, the rose is launching just in time for its summer target, said sales manager Wassim Abi Raad. Adyar’s vinos suggest Thai food or a basket of fresh strawberries as perfect pairings with L’Aube.

If there was one new wine that crowned the four-day show, it was Chateau Qanafar’s yet-to-be-bottled Qanafar 2011, said visiting sommelier Paul Op ten Berg. Op ten Berg, from the Netherlands Gild of Sommeliers, was part of HORECA’s foreign delegation of wine writers.

He said it was the most interesting thing he’d tried on his trip – and that’s after tasting every Lebanese wine on display at HORECA and many more that weren’t.

Qanafar’s founder George Naim explained the Qanafar 2011 was an equal blend of three red grapes: cabernet, merlot and syrah. The result is a spicy, fruity red with notes of red currant, prune and red berries. “It’s the most noble wine we have,”Naim said.

“The complexity is immense.”

Source: The Daily Star