Grapes of Change
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, […]
FROM CANNABIS TO CABERNET
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 […]
Au Liban, Quand La Vigne Supplante Le Cannabis
Assis dans sa vigne de la Bekaa libanaise, entre des plants de sauvignon blanc et de tempranillo, Michel Emad, militaire retraité et père de deux adolescents, se souvient de l’époque, aujourd’hui révolue, où il cultivait du cannabis. “Tout le monde plantait du haschisch, c’était la demande du marché, il n’y avait pas d’agriculture alternative”, se […]