Tag: Lebanon

Review of the Lebanese Wine Couvent Rouge Petit Couvent 2020

Lebanese Wines: Couvent Rouge Petit Couvent Red 2020

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Name: Couvent Rouge Petit Couvent Red 2020
Type: Red Wine
Grapes: Cabernet Sauvignon, Tempranillo
Year: 2020
Country: Lebanon
Region: Bekaa Valley
Date Consumed: October 8, 2025

50% cabernet sauvignon and 50% tempranillo, this bottle was amazingly (and for its price, even unexpectedly) good.

I uncorked the Petit Couvent 2020 to pair it with the red sauce pasta my wife prepared for lunch. To be honest, we didn’t have high hopes. I even told my wife, “I’m not sure how good this wine will be, but it’s made with grapes we like, so it shouldn’t be horrible.” The bottle has been lying in my collection for months, but I postponed opening it because the bottle was so cheap compared to other Lebanese wines that I didn’t think I’d enjoy it so much. And guess what? I was wrong.

Never judge a wine by its price.

Reviewing the Lebanese wine by Ardoum called the Red Four

Lebanese Wines: Ardoum The Red Four 2020

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Name: Ardoum The Red Four 2020
Type: Red Wine
Grapes: Cabernet Sauvignon, Syrah, Grenache, Merlot
Year: 2020
Country: Lebanon
Region: Mount Lebanon
Date Consumed: October 7, 2025

I brought a 1.2 kg eye of round home with me yesterday, and I decided to make a braised roast. For that, I needed a good red wine. If you know me, you’d know that I no longer use “cooking wine” to cook. If it isn’t a wine I can drink, then I won’t allow my food to drink it either. I’m the one eating the food that’s been cooked with that wine, after all… And so, that’s how I ended up uncorking the award-winning blend by Ardoum called The Red Four. (Obviously, it’s called The Red Four because it’s made of four grapes: cabernet sauvignon, syrah, grenache, and merlot.)

Ardoum’s The Red Four 2020, once poured in the glass, displayed a lovely ruby dress. Full-bodied with supple tannins, I got notes of ripe black and red fruits and hints of tobacco, spices, and a tiny bit of leather.

Overall, this wine was much better than what I remembered it to be, even better than their Cabernet Sauvignon 2018.

While we’re here, and since I got so much pleasure out of The Red Four 2020 last night, allow me to also share a quote from a book I’m reading now — Dialectic of Enlightenment by Theodor Adorno & Max Horkheimer:

Pleasure is, so to speak, nature’s vengeance.

Driving in a Sea of Clouds

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A sea of clouds beneath us.
Mountain chains
like frozen shadows
of surging waves.
The setting sun sinking into the fog
reminds me of the
yolk of a hard boiled egg.
And then, there’s the silhouette of
a mountain, like an island in the middle of
the sea of
clouds, and its peak reminds me of
the tip of
an iceberg.

The steering wheel of the car I’m driving
suddenly feels like the helm of a massive ship,
and I am the captain of that ship.

And now, the car dives like a submarine
into the fog.
I turn the headlights and the fog lights on.
I turn the hazard lights on,
and
its
clicking
sound
becomes our metronome.

I drive slowly,
very slowly.

My wife is in the back seat
next to my seven-month-old son,
who’s sleeping peacefully
in his car seat.

I keep on driving,
and
I drive slowly, very slowly.
And the fog
never
ends.
We can’t see anything.
“I can’t see anything,” my wife says.
“Please, be careful.”
Will the fog ever
end?
And the fog never ends
until it suddenly
finally
ends,
and
we can see
the road ahead of us
again.