In Egypt, the Al Ahram Beverages Company has been producing wine with grapes from Lebanon, South Africa and other countries for quite a long time.
In 2003 the company management decided to plant vines in the desert again and suggested it to some land owners, fruit and vegetable growers. They accepted the proposal. One year later they had planted about 144 feddans (about 52 hectares) with 19 varieties and 6 different rootstocks. A good collection.
The first plantation, based on known varieties, has been carried out to test which of the varieties will adapt better to the extreme climatic conditions of Egypt in order to refine the choice of varieties and rootstocks for future plantations.
In spring 2005, Mas Martinet Assessoraments was offered to take over the technical responsibility in the execution of this wine project.
The grounds of our acceptance lay in the transcendence of the project. When we visited the Khatatba estate, a property owned by Mr Karim Hwaidak, and felt the sun shining on our heads, for a moment I remembered some classroom scenes taking place in the vocational school of Oenology and Viticulture of Falset, where in the eighties I was teaching. The topic discussed there dealt with the indisputable principles of the "Winkler Regions”, which defined the wine types one could grow in the regions III-IV. These regions were used for the production of sweet and mellow wines or similar products, that is to say, areas where the production of prestigious wines could not be expected. On the contrary, in the regions I-II wines of higher quality are expected. These regions coincide with the routes of the northern Monasteries, where in the Middle Ages the monks had already found and studied the qualities of their specific "terroirs". At present, these vineyards produce the best wines of Burgundy.
It was disappointing for me not to have the arguments to refute these principles, as the Priorat and by extension most of the Mediterranean areas, the origin of our culture in general and of wine culture in particular, were supposedly inadequate areas for producing great wines. So we should content ourselves with the typical mellow wines and the muscatels that were elaborated in the cooperative wine cellars knowing that these products do not provide any added value and the benefits of their production can never go beyond the costs. Therefore, the recovery of El Priorat and other limiting areas seemed to be unfeasible and caught in the land of unreachable dreams.
But just like that, a group of friends has a dream and makes it real and catapults the Priorat to the Olympus of wines.
Time has gone by and the quality wines of our Priorat have been consolidated. But now another adverse factor has arisen, "global warming". Our regions will pass from region IV to region V, and as Mr. Richard Smart said in a conference in Logroño on global warming, "you, in Rioja, you have already made the best possible wine ".
However, the winegrowers of  regions I-II are rubbing their hands since they will pass to regions II-III, so making their wines still much better, according to their recent declarations. It seems that we, Mediterranean winegrowers, are unable to end the bad spell; now that we were starting to have success, nature is playing a dirty trick on us.
Well then, I will not surrender, I want to continue. Egypt is giving me the same opportunity which the Priorat gave me then. As for the viticultural and oenological knowledge, I do not believe that the current determinisms are the definitive ones. There are things nature has not taught us yet. We still have to discover other principles. However, in order to be able to find out new secrets about nature we all have to erase a series of preconceptions from our minds, which have been piled up through the times and may deform the future reality. We need clean minds so that we can say "let’s start again and see what happens!”.
Apart form carrying out multiple scientific studies about vines and the environment to find out the optimal conditions and to be able to produce grapes of great quality in desert areas, we are looking for the origin of our history. We are visiting the "Copt" monasteries where the priests use grape juice for their religious celebrations. In the orchards of these monasteries vines have been cultivated throughout the centuries. This is why the "varietal-historical" approach can clear a way for us parallel to the scientific one to complete the personality of the wines of this region.
With all these ingredients we will be able to study and enjoy ourselves. We will be able to observe the multiple reactions of the vine when treating it one way or the other. It will be a dialogue, a feed-back, between the vine and the winegrower.
Therefore, I would like to explain "on line"our progress and achievements to curious wine lovers.
As well as this, you will be able to taste the resulting wines, both the experimental and the definite ones, in the shop of our web site, which will soon be opened. We can already offer you wines produced last year; very interesting ones by the way, among many others also a very special white wine. I will tell you more soon.

Josep Lluís Pérez