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Couvent Rouge was established in 2010, as a complement to the “Coteaux d’Heliopolis” cooperative project. Founded in 1999, the cooperative’s purpose was to replace illicit cannabis plantations with noble vine grapes plantations; offering, therefore, the possibility for the farmers to settle down in their native village. Today, the Fairtrade certified cooperative gathers more than 200 […]

“Grapes will not replace cannabis in Lebanon anytime soon, if ever,” says Anthony Elghossain.  But that doesn’t mean Lebanese farmers aren’t giving it a try, turning fields that were once illicit cannabis plantations into fields growing grapes for red wine. Elghossain went to Lebanon in 2017 to write From Cannabis to Cabernet for Roads & Kingdoms. It’s […]

Founded in 1999, Coteaux d’Heliopolos is a fair trade–certified cooperative that encourages farmers in Lebanon’s Bekaa Valley to switch from growing cannabis to wine grapes. By 2010, they had enough fruit to supply their own wine label, Couvent Rouge. Today, winemaker Walid Habchi works with grapes from more than 200 growers to highlight the diversity […]

Deir El Ahmar, a Christian village in the northern Bekaa valley’s Hermel-Baalbek region, is more notorious for its marijuana plantations than it is for great wines. But winemaking is precisely what the Coteaux d’Heliopolis Cooperative now wants their village to become known for. The birth of the Cooperative Having never really felt the government’s support or presence, […]

In Lebanon, farmers who once grew marijuana and poppy are trying their hand at Syrah and Tempranillo. We climb Mount Lebanon, which rises rapidly from the Mediterranean. Navigating the narrow, rutted roads, we cut through a landscape littered with lush ravines and barren quarries; rivers dyed red with topsoil runoff, which the ancients believed to […]