Château Ksara Reserve du Couvent, Lebanon, 2016 (£10.50, The Wine Society) The food of the eastern Mediterranean has never been more popular in the UK. Step forward and take a bow Ottolenghi and admirers/imitators, but then see also how hummus is not the shorthand for middle-class faddishness anymore (apparently two in five fridges contain the stuff). Eastern Mediterranean wine is also bubbling up, although not to anything like the same degree; it’s still hard to get your hands on much Israeli wine. But Lebanese wine is much easier to find and, from what I’ve tasted recently, it’s never been better. The oldest extant Lebanese producer is Château Ksara, which started life in 1857. Its cabernet-shiraz blend is a good place to start if you’ve never had a Lebanese wine, with its characteristically warm, spice-inflected soft and rich fruitiness.

Domaine Des Tourelles Vieilles Vignes Cinsault, Lebanon, 2017 (£17.49, Flagship Wines)Winemaking in the Lebanon has an ancient heritage – one of the world’s oldest. But its modern-day style owes much to the French, who were the colonial masters here in the early 20th century. You can see their influence in another of the country’s biggest names, Domaine des Tourelles, founded in the Bekaa Valley, Lebanon’s wine heartland, by François-Eugène Brun in 1868, and where the winemaker today, Faouzi Issa, learned his trade working at top French estates René Rostaing, in the northern Rhône, and Château Margaux in Bordeaux. The Tourelles range takes influences from both those regions, but conjures something very distinctive in the wine it makes from French grape variety cinsault, with its fresh cherry fruit and flavours of cinnamon and chocolate-raisin.

Musar Jeune Red, Lebanon, 2016 (£11.99, Virgin Wines) The most famous vinous name in Lebanon – and the estate that did most to keep Lebanese wine alive during the civil war – is Château Musar. The company’s original charismatic driving force, Serge Hochar, died in 2014 – although all of the currently available vintages of the family’s top, eponymous estate, cabernet sauvignon-carignan-cinsault red blend predate his passing. Like top gran reserva Rioja (which in many ways Musar resembles, although it also has much in common with top Rhône and Bordeaux) these are wines that are mature on release but also age beautifully. I haven’t tasted it for a while, but I’d be tempted by the 2002 on offer for £30 at Roberson. I’d be happy, too, with the more upfront fruit and freshness of the Jeune Red wine by Hochar’s family from younger vines.