{"id":16127,"date":"2023-04-05T01:34:09","date_gmt":"2023-04-04T22:34:09","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/akademy.org.tr\/en\/?p=16127"},"modified":"2023-04-11T09:55:50","modified_gmt":"2023-04-11T06:55:50","slug":"meet-kurdistans-queen-of-winemaking","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/akademy.org.tr\/en\/2023\/04\/05\/meet-kurdistans-queen-of-winemaking\/","title":{"rendered":"Meet Kurdistan\u2019s Queen of Winemaking"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The car ride from Erbil, the capital of the Kurdistan region in northern Iraq, to the town of Shaqlawa took about 40 minutes \u2013 about the same time it takes to find Fakhria Elia\u2019s home in the mountainous town.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The 76-year-old opened the door with a wide smile on her face and welcomed VOA into her house, with its backyard that overlooks a steep valley, surrounded by the famous Mount Safeen.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cThis is where I made my wine for nearly 50 years,\u201d Elia said, pointing to a corner of her backyard where several wooden barrels stood.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Elia is known throughout Kurdistan and Iraq for her homemade wine.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cWhat makes our wine unique is that the grapes used for it are from our own vineyard,\u201d she told VOA in January. \u201cEverything we make is homegrown.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The vineyard, located across from Elia\u2019s home, is on a sloping hill.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cI used to produce my wine by placing the grapes on a cloth and crushing them with my feet,\u201d she told VOA. \u201cIt was a very difficult, yet fun process.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

When Elia\u2019s children realized she was aging a few years ago, they decided to purchase some modern winemaking equipment so she could carry on her passion.

\u201cOn average, the aging time for our wine is seven years.\u201d Elia said as she picked up a sealed bottle of her Shaqlawa wine. \u201cIf you want decent wine, then seven years should be enough.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"Fakhria
Fakhria Elia\u2019s wine is sold in selected liquor stores in Iraqi Kurdistan, Jan. 18, 2023<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

\u201cFakhria Elia\u2019s wine is sold in selected liquor stores in Iraqi Kurdistan, January 18, 2023 (Photo: Hama Azad\/VOA).\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Elia\u2019s wine is sold in the family\u2019s liquor store, adjacent to the house, as well as selected liquor stores and bars in Erbil and other cities in Iraqi Kurdistan.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Elia belongs to a Christian minority living in a predominately Muslim region. Her hometown, Shaqlawa, used to have a significant Christian population. But now just more than 500 Christians live there, according to a recent census commissioned by the Kurdistan Regional Government.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

While the Kurdistan region is largely moderate, alcohol consumption is limited to Christians, other non-Muslims as well as non-practicing Muslims.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In early March, the Iraqi government banned the production, export and import of all alcohol in the country, but that ban doesn\u2019t include the Kurdistan region.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Elia and her family say they have never felt unsafe for running a business that is largely deemed unacceptable by conservative Muslims.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Fazil Khorani, 50, Elia\u2019s youngest son who runs the liquor store, said their business relies on two types of customers.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cThose who come to us specifically for our homemade wine,\u201d he said. \u201cAnd others who randomly stop by to buy any kind of alcohol.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

With a deteriorating economic situation in the Kurdistan region, Elia hopes to expand her sales beyond Kurdistan and Iraq.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cWe get some on-demand business from people in places like Australia, Canada and America, but we certainly want to export our wine in a more formal way,\u201d she said. \u201cIt is a product that everyone here should be proud of.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

This story originated in VOA\u2019s Kurdish Service.<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Fakhria Elia has been making wine for almost 50 years, and it is sold at the family\u2019s liquor store in Shaqlawa, Iraqi Kurdistan.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":16128,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_price":"","_stock":"","_tribe_ticket_header":"","_tribe_default_ticket_provider":"","_tribe_ticket_capacity":"0","_ticket_start_date":"","_ticket_end_date":"","_tribe_ticket_show_description":"","_tribe_ticket_show_not_going":false,"_tribe_ticket_use_global_stock":"","_tribe_ticket_global_stock_level":"","_global_stock_mode":"","_global_stock_cap":"","_tribe_rsvp_for_event":"","_tribe_ticket_going_count":"","_tribe_ticket_not_going_count":"","_tribe_tickets_list":"[]","_tribe_ticket_has_attendee_info_fields":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[59,1,44],"tags":[99,97,101,95,100,98,96],"class_list":["post-16127","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-folklore","category-genel","category-reading","tag-christian","tag-fakhria-elia","tag-iraq","tag-kurdistan","tag-minority","tag-shaqlawa","tag-wine"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/akademy.org.tr\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/16127","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/akademy.org.tr\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/akademy.org.tr\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/akademy.org.tr\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/akademy.org.tr\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=16127"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"http:\/\/akademy.org.tr\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/16127\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":16129,"href":"http:\/\/akademy.org.tr\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/16127\/revisions\/16129"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/akademy.org.tr\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/16128"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/akademy.org.tr\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=16127"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/akademy.org.tr\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=16127"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/akademy.org.tr\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=16127"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}