Lebanon Wine Tasting Tour

Zingy has been exceptional during my entire visit to Lebanon. My driver/guide Robin was knowledge, interesting with quite a good sense of humor. He provided great insight into historic and modern day Lebanon. He was also flexible as I was just recovering from a stomach issue the day before, the thought of drink wine was not so appealing. As I was the only one on the tour that day, he provided some great options/alternatives to the tour I booked. So...although I can't speak to wine tour I was supposed to be on, I can speak to the fact that Zingy is a top notch tour company!

We booked this 7 hour wine TOUR , paying £ 148.02. What we expected was a guide for the day explaining to us the history of wine in the Bekka Valley and the three vineyards that we were due to visit. What we got was a taxi transfer to the three locations in an old taxi that had to turn off the a/c to get up the hills , no seatbelts had we wanted to use them and a very chatty driver who extolled how good a driver he was and all his client were very happy. The first vineyard tour lasted 25 minutes much of which was spent in a chapel / grotto, our guide had no knowledge to share and we gleaned more info from the back of the bottle ! The second stop 5 minutes down the tiad was the most interesting, no guide available for 4 hours so we did not even get through the front door. So off to Chateau Ksara so 20 minutes drive away. Here at least we found a proper wine tour with very welcoming and informative staff, the tour itself is free and they charge between LLB 5,000 to 15,000 per person for the wine tasting. The premium tasting being the most expensive was not included in our package but as the reception had no record of our visit so even the basic and mid range wine tasking was available. Kasra and ourselves tried to call the local tour company ZINGY RIDES but no one picked up the calls. So in summary we spent 3 hours in the back of a taxi / 1hour 25 mins at a vineyard ??. We took this up with Zingy Rides who offered a plethora of excuses from the fact they booked the wines tours and laid on transport to they only receive 50% of the tour fee, but not once did they accept that as the organiser it was there responsibility! It seems that that Zingy Rides is little more that a booking agent and as a client you are just a source of income and they will take no responsibility when it goes wrong or offer a refund. Reflects poorly on the company, Viator for giving them the platform and Lebanon all in equal measure. Do not be misguided by the 5 * reviews, try elsewhere or just go to Chateau Kasra under your own steam and save a fortune. Hope this assists 😃