CP: Talk me through the process of starting Heya Wines

CL+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?

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?

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?

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.