How the life of a winemaker was turned upside down in a split second.
Elias Maalouf was squishing his grapes when a bomb fell. His life has been turned upside down.
Now, he says, “people should invest in peace”. ‘War is stupid’.
Bombs had just landed on a neighbouring village shortly before Elias spoke to me on 26 September. A bomb had also hit a Hezbollah storehouse of Katyusha rocket launchers close to his Winery and a number had exploded .
Elias’s Rayak winery was hit by a bomb on Monday 23 September. “I have been targeted in a really bad way. I also lost parts of my house, part of my family’s house. My whole town has been evacuated. The first bomb hit just in front of the winery, and that’s what ruined everything. In less than seconds, we lost all our dreams.
“We never knew”
We had just finished building a new segment of our winery. We had finished bringing in new equipment, and we were squishing some grapes, enjoying winemaking. We never knew that winemaking was going to become a threat to our lives, a threat to our families, a threat to being who we are now.
The bomb destroyed our wine collection. The bottles fell to the floor and broke. The bomb also destroyed parts of the roof of our winery. Of course, we lost some equipment and we lost our laboratory. The whole laboratory was destroyed into pieces. Our office and the equipment in the office also suffered destruction. Unfortunately, I think among all the winemakers, Château Rayak has the saddest story. We’re not only talking about the winery; we’re talking about the family, everything else.
Where is Rayak?
The city of Rayak is in the middle of the Bekaa Valley. It’s in Rayak, It’s a very nice city, which before the civil war had the largest train station, the first cinemas in the Middle East, a nightlife. We had a large military air base. We made airplanes in Rayak, built trains, built dreams. We had laboratories, a large number of schools and universities. Unfortunately, today it’s a couple of men trying to defend their houses from vandalization. People have lost everything, and they’re trying to hold on to what’s left in Rayak.
People lost their lives
The bomb fell on Tuesday 24 September. [After it fell] people were searching for their relatives on our premises. A lot of people lost their lives just at the gates of our winery, and there are still people missing.
My family hasn’t been wounded, thank God. The people who died were those who were passing by. I don’t know who they are or where they’re from, but unfortunately, we know that people lost their lives. We saw people with blood. We saw a father with his son in a car, completely destroyed. I know this is about wine, but people are much more important now.
A natural winemaker
I am a natural winemaker. My wine is made naturally without artificial yeast or laboratory yeast. Our grapes are grown naturally in the vineyards without pesticides or chemicals. Our bottles have no sulphur. Our winery, which was once one of the smallest, had been growing in the past two years because of the good energy and the flow of people visiting.
We were preparing to export, to travel around the world with our wine. Unfortunately, just when we got the courage to start, we bought the equipment, started squishing the grapes, got the permits for export, and then suddenly the bomb came.
In seconds, we lost our houses, our dreams, our lives.
The Lebanese are known to be resilient. I’m very sad. My heart is heavy with sadness, but at the same time, I’m clearing the winery right now. I’m trying to clear some of the damage, and I’ll be preparing myself to receive grapes in the next couple of days. Without a roof, without electricity, I’m trying to prepare what I can. I don’t know if I’ll catch up, but I’m cultivating grapes now. I had to give some of my grapes away to some of my winemaker friends. But by the end of this week, no matter what bombs are thrown around, no matter what is happening, I promised myself that I won’t give up. I have a family to support, and I will be squishing grapes, hopefully in two to three days.
I still haven’t harvested all my grapes. I still haven’t harvested all of them.
Our livelihood
The decision to make wine is not just about not giving up. We need to make wine. It’s our livelihood. We never imagined that picking grapes would be so dangerous. We never imagined that winemaking could be dangerous. I never imagined that just crossing from my house, which is just above my winery, would be dangerous.
But at the same time, we will not give up. I will not give up. I will be squishing my grapes by Sunday or Monday, just after I clear the mess. I am currently fixing my parents’ house and my own house because I need to bring my family back. But after that, I’m going to receive my grapes, even without repairing the winery. I have to receive them. The good thing is, nature gave us an opportunity to wait a bit because the grapes that I was supposed to harvest three days ago, when the bomb hit, have had a sugar increase—a Brix[i] level increase—which is very high per day. But suddenly, it has stopped. The grapes are stable, waiting for the appropriate time to be harvested.
Brix is the level of sugar in the grapes. It’s a measure of the sugar in the grape. Sometimes the grapes are waiting for us. Usually, you wake up and suddenly there’s a boost of energy in the vineyards, and they start raising 1% sugar per day. This pushes the farmer and winemaker to work fast to harvest the grapes, or they will lose their vineyards.
The explosion happened
What happened was, a few days before the bombing, we were cultivating all our grapes in a fast way just to be able to accommodate them in our winery. Then, suddenly, the explosion happened. I went back to the vineyards yesterday, and after checking on the sugar level, the sugar became stable suddenly. There’s nothing dangerous now. I won’t be losing the type of grape that I’m preparing to cultivate.
If you see the live footage during the bombing, nothing is worse than what you can see—people dying, thousands of bottles on the floor, broken. We were waiting for the right moment to sell them. Equipment broken, the roof destroyed, doors and windows broken. We receive tourists, and our winery sells 80% of its wine to tourists passing by between Zahle and Baalbek, the Temple of Wine, the largest temple of wine.
Touristic energy
So, we lost our touristic energy at the beginning of the Gaza war. We had to find an alternative because we depend on tourism. We had already been hit by Corona, and when we thought Corona was over, Gaza came, and now the war in Lebanon. We have to prepare to export. We will continue preparing to export. We make wine not just for a living; it’s a passion that we cannot give up. Now that my children are in a safe area, which is Byblos, and my whole family is there, I am ready to receive my grapes back at the winery.
The grapes we’re cultivating today are for friends. I had to give away some of my grapes, but I’m stopping cultivation tomorrow for two days
I still have a nice amount of wine bottles that survived the bombing. We’re looking for people who appreciate our grapes, our wines, and our way of making wine.
Exporting through Beirut
Yes, we can still export. At the moment, it’s via the Port of Beirut, which is still operating, or via aeroplanes. There are many ways.
Many people are still exporting their grapes.
All my colleagues, winemakers, called me, and they were ready to help and support. This is very important to us. Even though we might not be taking the support because we want to continue our winemaking in our winery, the phone calls from our colleagues were more than enough and very motivational for us.
We got phone calls from the largest wineries in Lebanon to the smallest. They were all very concerned and saddened by what happened to us, and they cared about what’s going on. In the end, this is very important for us.
Winemakers rally round
Yes, when something really bad happens, motivation is what brings you back.
Château Rayak has been growing yearly. Since 2015, we started with a couple of thousand bottles, like two to three thousand bottles. Every year we grew a bit. Today, we were preparing to make 80,000 bottles in our winery. Unfortunately, we won’t be able to make the whole quantity, but we hope to make around 30,000 bottles this year.
Closing the door on a broken collection
I opened the cellar where the old bottles are, and I saw the whole thing. I just couldn’t continue seeing the amount of destruction, so I had to close the door. The door was already broken, but I had to put stuff in front of it. I’ll let the counting take place afterward. I just don’t have the energy to count.
The collection that was lost was lost. We lost part of the collection that we started making under the name Château Rayak in 2015. All the wine that I made since 1997 with my grandfather until we became Château Rayak is safe, thank God. The wine of the civil war, we lost it. Before the civil war, we already lost it. Not even the equipment was left. But now we still have some wine, and we’re not looking at the bottles that are on the floor today. We are looking at the filled bottles that are on the racks. It’s like looking at the full part of the cup, not the empty part.
Baalbek and Bacchus: History in the Grape
We are a few kilometres away from Baalbek, maybe 20 kilometres where you can find the Temple of Wine, the largest temple of wine in the world. Around us, the god Bacchus, the god of wine—not only in Baalbek but also in the cliffs surrounding Château Rayak—there are small temples of Bacchus. Historically, the Bekaa Valley, and especially our area, was the most famous in the world for winemaking. Our great ancestors, the Phoenicians, were the first merchants of wine. They sent our wine all around the Mediterranean, even to England. The Bekaa Valley, and especially the area around Zahle, has been the most famous in winemaking history.Yes, it’s built with the largest megalithic stones in the world.
Katyushas flying around
We had a bomb that hit a village adjacent to us. Last night was a very heavy and sad night. Bombs hit the surroundings of Rayak, where unfortunately warehouses filled with Katyushas[ii] were stored. All the Katyushas flew above our houses, our winery, and our church. One of the Katyushas fell in our church, but it didn’t blow up. Around our house and winery, we had seven Katyushas. Our military came and removed them.
Nothing will get me in trouble. I’ve already sacrificed my life, my house, my parents’ house, and I’ve already lost a lot.
My thoughts are with peace
So, if someone has the right to talk, it’s me. My thoughts are peace. War is stupid. War is stupid, and our problem in the world, not only our problem—I’m not talking about a certain group [eg Hezbollah] —I’m talking about sides. Both sides are so stupid that they don’t understand the advantage of peace.
If we had peace in our region, we would have been the most touristic region in the world. We would have the highest economy in the world. We would have the happiest people living in the world in our region because we have a historically beautiful and amazing climate that’s worth sharing with everybody in the world.
Europe fought hundreds of years of war, but Europe became what Europe is after peace. It was never so successful before this. The problem is that people, let me call it in a childish way, evil, are much more generous than. People that are speaking, they serve in blood and death. People of peace, all they do is buy a white flag, and they flip it from time to time.
Invest in peace
It’s time to invest in peace. That’s the only thing that we are looking for. If we don’t invest in peace today, it will be worse all the time. I’ve been hit very bad. I’ve been hit very bad. I’m very sad. I feel today that I’m the saddest person in the world, but if I were thinking of vengeance, this would continue for my children and my children’s children, and this won’t stop.
I believe governments all around the world, people all around the world, should start investing in infrastructure for peace, not only talking about peace. And what is the infrastructure for peace? Lebanon has no public transportation, no trains. Cities are not united. An infrastructure for peace should happen not only to unite the villages and cities of Lebanon, but we need to unite all the surroundings of Lebanon together in a peaceful way. Peace should be forced. Peace should be… people should invest in peace, not only talk about peace, not only share videos of wars and sad people on the internet. People should invest in peace.
The preceeding interview was recorded on Thursday 26 September. This is an edited transcript.
[i] Brix is a unit of measurement that indicates the sugar content of grapes, and is expressed in degrees. It’s used to determine the ideal time to harvest grapes, and can also help winemakers estimate the alcohol content of the resulting wine:
[ii] The Katyusha is a type of rocket artillery first built and fielded by the Soviet Union in World War II. Multiple rocket launchers such as these deliver explosives to a target area more intensively than conventional artillery, but with lower accuracy and requiring a longer time to reload. They are fragile compared to artillery guns, but are cheap, easy to produce, and usable on almost any chassis. [Wikipedia]
