In 2022, Claudine Lteif was helping her best friend, Michelle Chami, in the winery at Mersel Wines (Chami’s husband’s label) in Dimane, a small village 60 miles northeast of Beirut. The friends noticed something disturbing behind the scenes of Lebanon’s wine industry, in which men overwhelmingly hold positions of leadership: the invisible female work force.
While men hold the vast majority of Lebanon’s winery positions, women comprise most of the nation’s vineyard workers, many of them Syrian refugees. Typically, they are paid much less than their male counterparts for backbreaking and often thankless labor, while also being expected to run their family’s household.
A 2022 study conducted by the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO) in Lebanon found that rural women in the agriculture sector work an average of 14–16 hours per day. A good deal of that work goes unpaid.
Sandwiched between Syria to the north and east, and Israel to the south, Lebanon’s complex identity has made it a hotbed for many political conflicts.
Since the civil war ended in 1990, Lebanon’s wine industry has gone from strength to strength. Its winemakers have persevered through a brief but bloody battle with Israel in 2006, and, more recently, a global pandemic, a financial crisis, and an explosion in the capital city of Beirut, all in 2020.
In recent weeks, Israeli airstrikes have hit Beirut and other areas of the country, drawing increasingly closer to–and even within– the nation’s wine regions (the majority of which are located in the north and east), Lebanese winemakers worry once again for their safety and livelihoods.
Against this tumultuous backdrop, Lebanese wine women—particularly second- or third-generation daughters of winery owners—have begun to take the leadership reins from their fathers and grandfathers.
Lebanese-born Lteif and Chami do not come from winemaking families. When they first witnessed the scores of refugee Syrian women harvesting grapes for hours in the heat and dust of northern Lebanon’s vineyards, they were determined to change the narrative, not only by getting their own hands dirty in the winery, but by empowering these women via equal pay, better working conditions and greater recognition for their work.
Heya Wines—which means “she” in Arabic—was born.
Lteif and Chami currently make a range of natural wines and co-ferments using, in part, native Lebanese grape varieties with techniques like carbonic maceration, fermentation in amphorae (clay vessels) and low sulfur additions.
Heya Wines are imported into the US by Terra Sancta Trading Company and distributed across America and Canada, with names like “Farha” (joy), “Kanz” (treasure) and “Ward” (rose). The labels depict photos of the women who now work as part of a picking team run by Lteif and Chami.
Bon Appétit recently chatted with Lteif and Chami over Zoom, to find out more about this game-changing project and the challenges they are currently facing.
This interview has been edited for length and clarity.
CP: Talk me through the process of starting Heya Wines
CL and MC: We have always been really close. We were neighbors on the same floor so our doors were always open. On the weekends Claudine used to come with her kids to help [at Mersel’s] winery or during harvest. We noticed that the women working in the vineyards would work twice or three times as hard and get paid less than men.
Harvest starts very early in the morning, and when we’d pick the women up [for work], we’d see them putting a load of washing on and hanging it up. We’d ask them, “What time did you wake?” And they’d say, “Since 4:30 a.m.” They’d go to harvest, then go home and to make up the lost time away from the family, they have to do a mouneh (“can vegetables”). They’re working with 50 kilos of produce—pickles, eggplant, olives—per day so they can feed the family during the winter, while also picking grapes, carrying crates, doing everything.
These women are superheroes. Yet they get no recognition, no appreciation. What can we do for them?
The best thing is to pay them the same as men, and to empower women, especially in the Middle East, to show them that the wine business isn’t just for men.
We’ve created a small community here. We ask about their children, we know their history. We're not just sitting aside and watching them work, we’re working right alongside them.
What are some challenges you’ve faced being a female-led business in Lebanon?
CL and MC: Two days ago a farmer came from the Beqaa Valley. He was watching us, and he was so shocked that he said, “I can't believe you have women working here. In our area, you will never see a woman doing the kind of job that you’re doing in a winery. In the fields, fine, but in a winery, never.” He was so amazed that we actually get our hands dirty.
We harvest, carry crates, clean tanks, operate the pump, label, cork, bottle, box, deliver. On top of all of this, hungry men expect us to produce something to eat when we come back home.
Are there logistical hurdles in running a wine business in Lebanon today?
CL and MC: Besides the challenges that everyone faces like water [shortages], there is an electricity problem. We don’t have electricity 24 hours a day, so sometimes we have to wait for it to come back on. Transport is a challenge too. There’s not enough fuel for everyone. But the banks are possibly the hardest problem; pulling out your money is a big issue. So we rely on money that’s coming in through sales or from our personal [savings], just to be able to sustain this business.
With the Israeli strikes in Beirut and other parts of the country, how are things on the ground there?
CL and MC: We can hear the drones, jets passing and even bombing in the Beqaa Valley. It’s such a difficult and uncertain situation we are living in, we don’t know what tomorrow or even the next few hours hold. Going to Beirut or even simply driving around needs some consideration and planning. It is the harvest season, which helps us escape to find some peace for a few hours. We have lived and survived several wars before, so we try to find solutions and we try to keep the hope and focus on making wine and control the things we can control.
Amid the challenges currently facing your nation, where does Heya go from here? What does the future hold?
CL and MC: We are living day-by-day with our hand on our heart.
In these challenging times, our mission at Heya Wines is more vital than ever: to empower the incredible women we work with, who have bravely navigated the turmoil of leaving their homes in search of a better life. We are committed to honoring their strength through love, appreciation, and equal pay (with aspirations to elevate that further). Also, we would love to expand into new markets and increase production so that we can share our wines with the Lebanese diaspora and global enthusiasts. We aim to evoke a sense of resilience and connection, celebrating the beauty and strength of our land and its people.