Lebanese winemaker strains to keep business alive through war and drought

By Emilie Madi and Maya Gebeily

RIYAK, Lebanon (Reuters) -Elias Maalouf crouched to examine a shrivelling grapevine in his ancestral vineyard in the sun-kissed plains of eastern Lebanon. Last year, Israeli air strikes kept him from picking most of the grapes. Now, a drought has slashed his harvest.

"Whether it's a political war or a climate war, we're suffering on all sides," said Maalouf, 42, whose family has been making wine for six generations. 

As the sun rose, six women quietly picked clusters of 13 different grape varieties in Maalouf's fields in the Bekaa Valley, Lebanon's agricultural heartland and the capital of its winemaking industry. 

The region was hit hard by last year's deadly Israeli air strikes targeting Iran-backed Hezbollah that began on September 23, peak grape-picking season. That afternoon, a three-storey building near Maalouf's winery in the town of Riyak was hit.

Maalouf and his elderly father were unscathed, but their wines weren't. The force of the blast destroyed 6,800 bottles and blew off the winery's roof, exposing 12,000 more to the sun and rendering them undrinkable. Another 20,000 litres were ruined when the caps on fermentation tanks shot off.

"We had prepared 40,000 bottles to export," Maalouf said. "Then, boom. You look left and right, and everything is broken."     

For the next two months, Israel struck Lebanon's Bekaa, the country's south and the capital's suburbs in a campaign it said was targeting the Lebanese armed group, which had been launching rockets and drones at Israel for nearly a year. 

According to the Food and Agriculture Organisation, the war hit more than 4,000 hectares of crops and vineyards in Lebanon - mostly in Baalbek and Zahle, two Bekaa districts most known for their wines.

Some farmers told Reuters they feared that Israel's use of white phosphorus would have a long-lasting impact on their soil. 

In Maalouf's case, 60 metric tons of grapes were unpicked last year due to Israeli bombardment. "More than 32 strikes hit Riyak during last year's war - and we're not on the border, we're not involved in the politics, and we have nothing to do with what happened," he said.

He estimated his losses at $375,000 with no compensation provided. Tourism in the region has also been disrupted by continued Israeli strikes.

'TOXIC RELATIONSHIP'

It was only the latest challenge for the Maaloufs, whose winemaking legacy has been shaped by Lebanon's turbulent history.

Climate change is compounding the difficulties, with Lebanon experiencing its worst drought on record, weather experts say. Maalouf says poor rainfall this year has left him 60 tons short of his target of 80 tons of grapes.

"There's not a single crisis that hasn't hit us farmers," Maalouf said, recalling an Ottoman-era famine that forced his great-grandfather to flee his centuries-old vineyard. 

In 1975, the start of the Lebanese civil war pushed his father out of the country. Elias, who picked up the family business 20 years ago after returning home, said when Lebanon's economy collapsed in 2019, vandals looking for scrap metal stole iron stakes from his vineyard, uprooting grapevines in the process.

To keep the business alive, he has opened up the winery to other ventures, allowing wine lovers and restaurants to pay to make their own mixes from his grapes, or rent his equipment to make arak, a traditional Lebanese grape spirit.

"So much has happened to us over the last five years to the point that even the land is telling you to leave, nature is telling you to leave. But we're staying," Maalouf said.

"It's a toxic relationship, if I can put it that way. It's a one-sided love."

(Reporting by Emilie Madi and Maya Gebeily; Writing by Maya Gebeily; Editing by Emelia Sithole-Matarise)