In Lebanon, farmers who once grew marijuana and poppy are trying their hand at Syrah and Tempranillo.
We climb Mount Lebanon, which rises rapidly from the Mediterranean. Navigating the narrow, rutted roads, we cut through a landscape littered with lush ravines and barren quarries; rivers dyed red with topsoil runoff, which the ancients believed to be the blood of Adonis; olive trees, firs, and cedars; and red-roofed homes that dot once-picturesque villages now covered by concrete. After making a hairpin turn at the top, we arrive—abruptly—in the Bekaa Valley, a sun-soaked, patchy plain that the Romans called the “breadbasket of the world.”
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