Sept Winery Merwah Nehla Batroun Lebanon 2022

We are proud and excited to introduce Sept Winery's second indigenous grape, the Merweh! Merweh used to be planted all over Mount Lebanon, on old small terraces built by our ancestors, between olive and fig trees, which allowed the vines to climb on the trees and produce delicious grapes protected from the heat and the hungry predators!

This polyculture tradition was spread all over the mountains of Lebanon! Most of the merweh vineyards died from phylloxera during the 80s and of course, the civil war and rural exodus had their final coup de grace on what was left! Today Sept Winery aims to restore and preserve this grape from extinction! Luckily some old vineyards still exist in hidden places! Maher Harb, the winemaker, spent more than 5 years searching around the villages, forests, and valleys! In 2016 he found an amazing Century-old merweh vineyard, franc de pied, that resisted phylloxera, civil war, and abandonment! We feel lucky and grateful to have the chance to celebrate the heroic work of our ancestors by producing the most honest expression of one of our oldest Lebanese mountain grape varieties! An explosion of minerality and floral notes with an oriental twist of tamarind and rose water!