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I’m currently on holiday in Jordan, where the temperature is apparently somewhere in the mid-40s and fortified wine cannot be found for love nor money. Not that there’s a lack of good wine: one hotel had a 5 page wine-list and would happily provid a £300 bottle of claret. That said, I suppose it’s for the the best that there isn’t any available. The heat rather precludes drinking drinking except to rehydrate!

What I have been drinking a bit of is a local wine apparently produced on a vineyard owned by the Franciscans on Mount Nebo. Considering its massive gimmick value, it is not at all bad (though the white is horrific). I don’t drink very much unfortified red but my impressions are that it’s quite powerful, with a bit of spiciness. With a little imagination, I can even imagine a bit of Touriga Nacional in the blend! I don’t think I’ve ever drunk anything from Jordan before, and my impression of most Israeli and Palestinian wines is that they are pretty horrific, so this is a nice change.

-Jacob

I've had a few decent wines (but never one that was fortified) from Palestine although I have not tried the Mount Nebo. The ones that experience has taught me to look out for are Musar, Kefraya, Kefrankos and Gamla. There are others, but I forget their names.

I’ll keep an eye out for those; thanks for the tip! Mount Nebo is on the Jordanian side of the border and I think the Jordanians are probably less willing to cultivate an export market compared to the Israelis and Palestinians which is why the wine doesn’t make it to the West. There also don’t seem to be many vineyards in the country and the other local wines have all been pretty bad.

JacobH wrote:I’m currently on holiday in Jordan, where the temperature is apparently somewhere in the mid-40s and fortified wine cannot be found for love nor money. Not that there’s a lack of good wine: one hotel had a 5 page wine-list and would happily provid a £300 bottle of claret. That said, I suppose it’s for the the best that there isn’t any available. The heat rather precludes drinking drinking except to rehydrate!

Welcome to the Middle East! After a while, you get used to the heat (and really start to appreciate A/C's) and the appetite for wine returns. You even begin to consider paying that ridiculous amount of money for a bottle of wine in a posh hotel. That said, the weather is unusually cool here for the last couple of days, only around 30-35 degrees, with clouds and even the odd scatter of rain. Port weather!

RonnieRoots wrote:Welcome to the Middle East! After a while, you get used to the heat (and really start to appreciate A/C's) and the appetite for wine returns. You even begin to consider paying that ridiculous amount of money for a bottle of wine in a posh hotel. That said, the weather is unusually cool here for the last couple of days, only around 30-35 degrees, with clouds and even the odd scatter of rain. Port weather!

Thanks! I like the Middle East a lot (my first degree was in ancient Near Eastern History and Archaeology) but have mostly travelled in the Northern parts where it is quite hot, but not obscenely so... We met some Dutch ex-pats a couple of days ago who live in the UAE; they were talking about it reaching 50 in the Summer and I presume it gets even worse where you are.

I’m flying back on Sunday so am trying to hold off the temptation to buy overpriced Port till then!