Domaine Barguylus is the only operating commercial winery in Syria. Situated atop the Jabal al-Ansariyeh (its ancient name was Mt. Bargylus), outside the port city of Latakia, 200 km north of Beirut, it is home to what The Telegraph called “the world’s most dangerous wine”.
These wines are also, arguably, the world’s most difficult to produce. Since the outbreak of civil war in 2011 in this Muslim-majority country, the vineyard has been targeted on multiple occasions by Islamist rebels and the Syrian-Lebanese Saade brothers who run the estate have not been able to cross the border from Lebanon to visit. Winery equipment and spare parts are extremely difficult to source and have to be discreetly brought in by taxi. Samples of grapes and the finished wines have to make the perilous journey down the coastline to Beirut, again by taxi via Syria’s northern border, avoiding checkpoints and extra-judicial confiscations. The actual winemaking process is done over the Internet with the resident winemaker posting images of grapes and vines for the brothers to assess.
And yet… this is an astonishing area for viticulture. Latakia sits on Syria’s coastal mountain range, in close proximity to the Mediterranean Sea, which provides cooling daytime breezes, essential during the heat of summer. The mountains are rich with deposits of limestone, flint and clay, ideal for the cultivation of extremely high quality vitis vinifera. The altitude (900 masl) ensures large diurnal shifts between the day and evening, cooling the grapes and slowing sugar production, to ensure full ripening of the skins and complexity of flavour in the finished wines. The vines are densely planted, but are low-yielding, netting only 1 kilo of grapes per vine.
This is also a historic area for viticulture. One of the oldest wine relics ever found — an 8,000 year old grape press — was discovered close to the ancient city of Damascus. And Mount Bargylus wines were admired in antiquity and mentioned in the writings of Pliny the Elder in the 1st century AD. In more modern times, Christian monks cultivated vines in the region. But in spite of its old wine culture, Syria is relatively unknown as one of the original wine regions of the world.
It would seem the heroic efforts of this family estate to produce extremely limited quantities despite great diversity are worth it. Wine critic Jancis Robinson has said that Domaine Bargylus produces “arguably the finest wine of the Eastern Mediterranean”.
