V ines stretch to the horizon under the hot summer sun in a vineyard near Casablanca, one of the oldest in Morocco, where despite the pressures from a conservative Muslim society, wine production — and consumption — is flourishing.
“In Morocco, we are undeniably in a land of vines,” wine specialist Stephane Mariot said.
“Here, there is a microclimate which favors the production of ‘warm wines,’ even though we aren’t far from the ocean,” added the manager of Oulad Thaleb, a 2,000 hectare vineyard in Benslimane, 30km northeast of Casablanca, which he has run for five years.
Photo: AFP
However, the social climate in the North African county is less propitious, with the Islamist Party of Justice and Development winning power in 2011 and Moroccan law prohibiting the sale of alcohol to Muslims, who make up 98 percent of the population.
Yet in practice, alcohol is tolerated and well-stocked supermarkets do a brisk trade in the main cities, where there is a growing appetite for decent wine.
According to some estimates, 85 percent of domestic production is drunk locally, while about half of total output is considered good quality.
Photo: AFP
“Morocco today produces some good wine, mostly for the domestic market, but a part of it for export, particularly to France,” Mariot said.
Annual output currently stands at about 400,000 hectoliters, or more than 40 million bottles of wine, industry sources say, making the former French protectorate the second-biggest producer in the Arab world.
By comparison, Algeria, where vineyards were cultivated for a much longer period during French colonial rule, produces 500,000 hectoliters on average, and Lebanon, with its ancient viticulture dating to the pre-Roman era, fills about 6 million bottles annually.
Some of Morocco’s wine regions — such as Boulaouane, Benslimane, Berkane and Guerrouane — are gaining notoriety.
The country already has one Appellation d’Origine Controlee — controlled designation of origin, or officially recognized region — named “Les Coteaux de l’Atlas” and 14 areas with guaranteed designation of origin status, most of them concentrated around Meknes, as well as Casablanca and Essaouira.
In March last year, an association of Moroccan sommeliers was set up in Marrakesh, bringing together 20 wine experts.
In the central Meknes region, nestled between the Rif Mountains and the Middle Atlas, there is evidence of wine production dating back about 2,500 years.
However, the industry was transformed during the time of the protectorate — from 1912 to 1956 — when the kingdom served as a haven for migrating French winemakers after the phylloxera pest decimated Europe’s vineyards at about the turn of the 20th century.
As in Algeria and Tunisia, the French planted vineyards extensively, with Morocco’s annual production exceeding 3 million hectoliters in the 1950s.
The main grape varieties used to produce the country’s red wines are those commonly found around the Mediterranean, such as Grenache, Syrah, Cabernet-Sauvignon and Merlot.
Mariot boasts that the domain, which he said has the oldest wine cellar in use in the kingdom — built by a Belgian firm in 1923 — produces one of Morocco’s “most popular wines.”
Standing by a barrel, he cast a proud eye on the vintage, describing it as a “warm and virile wine.”
Abderrahim Zahid, a businessman and self-styled “lover of fine Moroccan wines” who sells them abroad, said the country now produces “a mature wine which we can be proud of.”
Morocco’s wine industry now employs up to 20,000 people, according to unofficial figures, and generated about US$170 million in 2011.
However, the remarkable progress made by the sector in recent years has taken place within a sensitive social environment.
While alcohol production is permitted by state law, and supermarkets and bars enforce no special restrictions on Muslim customers, officially, the sale and gift of alcoholic drinks to Muslims is illegal. They are unavailable during Islamic festivals, including throughout the holy month of Ramadan.
Separately, the Islamist-led government last year decided to raise taxes on alcoholic drinks from 450 dirhams (US$53) per hectoliter to more than 500 dirhams.
So far, this has not noticeably deterred consumption among Morocco’s population of 35 million, although economic realities certainly influence local drinking habits: The wine favored by most Moroccans is a cheap red called Moghrabi, which comes in a plastic bottle and costs 30 dirhams a liter.
WASHINGTON’S INCENTIVES: The CHIPS Act set aside US$39 billion in direct grants to persuade the world’s top semiconductor companies to make chips on US soil The US plans to award more than US$6 billion to Samsung Electronics Co, helping the chipmaker expand beyond a project in Texas it has already announced, people familiar with the matter said. The money from the 2022 CHIPS and Science Act would be one of several major awards that the US Department of Commerce is expected to announce in the coming weeks, including a grant of more than US$5 billion to Samsung’s rival, Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC, 台積電), people familiar with the plans said. The people spoke on condition of anonymity in advance of the official announcements. The federal funding for
HIGH DEMAND: The firm has strong capabilities of providing key components including liquid cooling technology needed for AI servers, chairman Young Liu said Hon Hai Precision Industry Co (鴻海精密) yesterday revised its revenue outlook for this year to “significant” growth from a “neutral” view forecast five months ago, due to strong demand for artificial intelligence (AI) servers from cloud service providers. Hon Hai, a major assembler of iPhones that is also known as Foxconn, expects AI server revenues to soar more than 40 percent annually this year, chairman Young Liu (劉揚偉) told investors. The robust growth would uplift revenue contribution from AI servers to 40 percent of the company’s overall server revenue this year, from 30 percent last year, Liu said. In the three-year period
LONG HAUL: Largan Energy Materials’ TNO-based lithium-ion batteries are expected to charge in five minutes and last about 20 years, far surpassing conventional technology Largan Precision Co (大立光) has formed a joint venture with the Industrial Technology Research Institute (ITRI, 工研院) to produce fast-charging, long-life lithium-ion batteries for electric vehicles, mobile electronics and electric storage units, the camera lens supplier for Apple Inc’s iPhones said yesterday. Largan Energy Materials Co (萬溢能源材料), established in January, is developing high-energy, fast-charging, long-life lithium-ion batteries using titanium niobium oxide (TNO) anodes, it said. TNO-based batteries can be fully charged in five minutes and have a lifespan of 20 years, a major advantage over the two to four hours of charging time needed for conventional graphite-anode-based batteries, Largan said in a
Taiwan is one of the first countries to benefit from the artificial intelligence (AI) boom, but because that is largely down to a single company it also represents a risk, former Google Taiwan managing director Chien Lee-feng (簡立峰) said at an AI forum in Taipei yesterday. Speaking at the forum on how generative AI can generate possibilities for all walks of life, Chien said Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC, 台積電) — currently among the world’s 10 most-valuable companies due to continued optimism about AI — ensures Taiwan is one of the economies to benefit most from AI. “This is because AI is