The Historic Pairing of ‘Wine & War’

Wine and war have never been far apart, from the beverage’s emergence in the ever-fractious Caucasus Mountains and Middle East to the Greek and Roman eras of conquest to the 20th century, when iconic European appellations were nearly bombed to smithereens during the World Wars. I reported on the link firsthand in 2004 when covering the postwar limbo of Nagorno-Karabakh, where vintners in one of the world’s oldest wine-growing regions were still clearing landmines from vineyards, making wine in bullet-hole-ridden barns, and coopering barrels in repurposed tank factories, a full decade after major fighting had ceased. 

But not until the recently released documentary Wine & War have filmmakers aimed such a focused lens on this connection. Co-created by Santa Barbara resident Mark Ryan, the 95-minute film covers the history of winemaking in Lebanon, where determined vintners continued to ferment their juice over the centuries as wars raged.