Wine leaders of Lebanon

And you may have heard of Kefraya. It's both a wine-growing sub-district in the Bekaa Valley and a producer - the country's second-largest. Its Syrah is hot stuff, and head honcho Michel de Boustros is currently planting Tempranillo and Merlot alongside his Cabernet and Mourvèdre (wines available through Villeneuve Wines, 01721 722500).

And then there's Ksara, the country's biggest player, owned by four families and producing about 1.7 million bottles a year (Neville Cox Wines, 01473 832752).

However, you probably haven't come across Salim Wardy's wines - or I hadn't, until a nose around newly revamped London Lebanese restaurant, Fakhreldine.

The restaurant has been there ever since I can remember. And while I love Lebanese food, the interior (too brightly lit) and clientele (too many men smoking overpowering shisha) just didn't do it for me.

Well, things have changed - dramatically. Fakhreldine has successfully positioned itself up there with the likes of Hakkasan and Zuma on the restaurant A-list. Now it's got chocolate suede banquettes, back-lit silk screens, mother-of-pearl inlaid panels - and that view over Green Park.

The menu has had an overhaul, too. Head chef is Karim Ha‹dar, who "changed the face of his native cuisine" at his Paris restaurant, Au 29, before settling at Fakhreldine last month. "Lebanese food has been rooted in the past for too long," he declares. So Fakhreldine offers Lebanese home cooking - such as sweet onion and pomegranate soup, charcoal-grilled lamb with sour cherry sauce, and mughli (caraway and cinnamon pudding sprinkled with grated coconut, almonds, pistachios and pine nuts).

The wine list offers 40% Lebanese wines, 40% French and the rest from the New World - though 50% of diners go for the Lebanese options, reveals manager Aidan Brown. Oddly, Fakhreldine doesn't sell much Musar (020 8941 8311) - diners prefer Wardy's 2000 ChÆ'teau les CÅ dres, on the list for £29 (available through Bekaa Wines, 020 8969 4777).

Domaine Wardy launched in 1999 with a range of varietals and blends including Cabernet Sauvignon, Syrah and Merlot. The inky, meaty-yet-supple fruit of the ChÆ'teau les CÅ dres complements the chargrilled dishes perfectly and sits well with the koftes and house-made sausages.

We can't talk about Lebanese wine without mentioning the country's national spirit, arak. Like its Mediterranean cousins pastis, ouzo and raki, arak is flavoured with aniseed and made using the wineries' spent grapes.

At Fakhreldine, they use it as an intriguing base for cocktails, blending it with a Lebanese grape cordial called jalab and serving it over crushed ice; and they substitute it for cacha‡a in their version of a caipirinha. The Rose Martini, though, is the restaurant's most popular cocktail - made with lychees, rose-petal cordial, vodka and bitters.

And the shisha? "Our Lebanese customers can still smoke, but only after 11pm," advises Brown.

Shorts

Matching trophy
David Garcia of London's Restaurant 24 was the winner of the hotels/restaurants category in the French Wines Match On-trade Competition 2003 held at Westminster Kingsway College, London, earlier this month; while Don Hewitson, from the capital's Cork & Bottle, won the award for the wine bars/gastropubs category.

The aim of the competition was to challenge chefs and sommeliers in both categories to match French wines to any style of cuisine in an innovative way, and the final cook-off involved a three-course meal cooked by Richard Corrigan of London's Lindsay House restaurant. Judges included Nick Tarayan of Wine of the Times and British Airways' Andy Sparrow.

Two further commendations went to Ian and Peggy Morgan of Waters Reach, in Manchester, and to Linda Johnson-Bell of London's Portobello Gold.

Boutique gin
William Grant & Sons has launched a super-premium gin called Hendrick's. Timed to be part of an expected gin revival, Hendrick's is made in small batches using an original 19th-century gin still in Girvan in the south-west of Scotland. It is bottled Victorian apothecary-style, with cork stopper, and uses eight different botanicals plus rose petals and cucumber - which are steam-distilled and gently infused with the base spirit. The gin is being aimed at "selected on-trade outlets and top-end style bars", says the company.