“Vinmaker risikerer livet for årets avling”

På vingården Sept kjemper Maher Harb for å bevare Libanons gamle druer og tradisjoner.

On the land Maher Harb inherited from his late father, who was killed by a car bomb during the Civil War, Harb has planted some 5,000 vines. Sept Winery is as much an homage to his homeland as it is to his father. Today’s war is the latest in a series of challenges. 

“Harb’s project goes further than his own vineyards and the collaborative work to promote organic grape growing in Lebanon. He also works to preserve local grape varieties, and has taken over plots of centuries-old vines of merweh and zitani, which were previously only used to produce raisins and molasses.”

“It’s called Sept, and it’s run by a young couple who have created La Table de Sept, a small lunchtime restaurant with breathtaking views. It’s about 950m up and it feels like you’re sitting on top of the world. There are a limited number of tables, which makes it very intimate, a sort of table d’hôte with a set menu paired with their own wines.”

“We need to celebrate our terroir,” says Sept Winery’s Harb. “Wine is an expression of the land, and the country is land so, for me, this is the only way to put an identity for your wine.” 

Today, Maher is known around the world for the wine he makes at Sept, his biodynamic winery in the hills above Beirut. He planted the first vines in 2010 and it wasn’t until 2017 that he produced his very first Syrah but his story starts with the death of his father during the Lebanese Civil War.

Maher Harb et le sept, son chiffre magique… De ce chiffre inspirant, il a fait un label pour sa production de vins qui le transporte tous les matins au… septième ciel. Évidemment…

This is a love story. It’s a story born out of Maher Harb’s love for food, wine, and Lebanon. A story of how he fell out of love with a great job as a management consultant, and how he decided his love for this plot of land near Batroun, Lebanon was a deep calling for how to contribute to the world today. 

“Sept Winery lies high above the historic Lebanese coastal town of Batroun [….]. The setting offers perfect conditions for Maher Harb, the owner of Sept, Lebanon’s only biodynamic winery, to nurture the native grapes that he uses to make natural wines. Harb is especially passionate about his mission: to highlight the value and singularity of what Lebanese vineyards have to offer.”

“The only way to revive our ancestral land and demonstrate its beauty and diversity is to abide by the laws of natural agriculture and biodynamics,” Mr. Harb said. “That’s the way our ancestors used to work.”

Maher Harb left a Paris consultancy job in 2010 and dug vines into the soil of family land unused since the country’s civil war.