One of the vineyard plots at Château St-Thomas in the Bekaa Valley, Aug. 26, 2025. (Credit: Fouad Gemayel/L'Orient-Le Jour)
“It was Sept. 23, 2024, at 5 p.m.” In the office of Elias Maalouf, head of the Château Riyaq winery in the Bekaa, every detail bears the mark of the day when the largest Israeli strike on Riyaq changed everything, as the war between Israel and Hezbollah, which began in October 2023, suddenly turned into open conflict.On the wall, the glass of a frame is shattered. In one corner, stacks of books, CDs, and cameras were salvaged. In the adjoining laboratory, the winemaker’s brand-new glass instruments, used to check the quality of his grapes and wine, replaced the old ones blown away by what Maalouf calls “Riyaq’s equivalent of the Beirut port explosion” of Aug. 4, 2020. Read more Toward 'smart agriculture' : A project between the Agriculture and Artificial Intelligence Ministries In this village of about 20,000 people, 80 percent of...
“It was Sept. 23, 2024, at 5 p.m.” In the office of Elias Maalouf, head of the Château Riyaq winery in the Bekaa, every detail bears the mark of the day when the largest Israeli strike on Riyaq changed everything, as the war between Israel and Hezbollah, which began in October 2023, suddenly turned into open conflict.On the wall, the glass of a frame is shattered. In one corner, stacks of books, CDs, and cameras were salvaged. In the adjoining laboratory, the winemaker’s brand-new glass instruments, used to check the quality of his grapes and wine, replaced the old ones blown away by what Maalouf calls “Riyaq’s equivalent of the Beirut port explosion” of Aug. 4, 2020. Read more Toward 'smart agriculture' : A project between the Agriculture and Artificial Intelligence Ministries In this village of about 20,000 people, 80...
'American sponsorship is a guarantee,' says Lebanese-American coordination committee