Lebanese Wine?

Reason's Michael Young interviews Lebanese wine writer Michael Karam:

Today, Lebanon produces 7 million bottles annually. It's still a cottage industry by global standards (it would need to produce 80 million bottles per year to reach 1 percent of France's output), but the quality is not in doubt and the Lebanese aim is to turn their country into one of the world's boutique wine nations. Meanwhile, domestic consumption has increased in relative terms, though it stands roughly at the still modest figure of a bottle per person per year, or some 3.5 million bottles consumed — though that includes domestic and foreign wines. This is helped in part by visiting or returning Lebanese emigrants, who bring with them the more pronounced taste for wine abroad that has yet to develop inside Lebanon. That said, the Lebanese, always anxious to be seen as getting it right, are gradually eschewing the obligatory bottle of luxury-blend whisky in favor of wine with their meals.