Chateau Musar

In the first in Octavian’s series on collectable wines, Michael Karam tells how Serge Hochar created Chateau Musar’s cult following

“At the Bristol wine fair, I tasted a range of Lebanese reds made from classic French grapes by a charming enthusiast, Serge Hochar, trained in Bordeaux. Called Château Musar, the 1967 was outstanding and inexpensive, the 1961 and 1959 great. Hard to describe, full, soft – a bit of claret, a touch of Burgundy. They have a London office.”

So wrote the late Michael Broadbent in 1979. The pinstriped pillar of the wine establishment was working at the time for Christie’s and he was writing his yearly round-up for Decanter.  He had discovered Musar at the Bristol Wine Fair and declared it one of the ‘eye-openers of the year’. The wine, its winemaker and indeed Lebanon, have never looked back.

Hochar was a second generation winemaker from an old Maronite banking family, who had studied under the great Émile Peynaud in France in the early 60s. He then tore up the rule book to make dazzlingly unorthodox wines. He also had a warm and convivial personality and a thundering good story about making wine in war in a country where wine was not expected to be made. It was a devastating combination.

The wines were earthy and wild, characterised by higher than normal volatile acidity and a generous dollop of ‘Brett’. Thus it is something of a marmite wine. But while some critics dismissed them as tired and old fashioned, Musar fans from New York to Tokyo and all stops in between, believe them to be extraordinary, thoughtful and beautiful, profound expressions of an ancient and powerful terroir.

The Chateau red is a blend of Cabernet Sauvignon Carignan and Cinsault, the latter two grapes having been part of the Bekaa Valley landscape ever since the Jesuits at Chateau Ksara introduced them from Algeria in the mid-19th Century. From vineyards in the West Bekaa towns of Ana and Ammiq, the grapes are transported to the winery in Ghazir. The wines are  released after seven years.

Hochar, who became almost if not more famous than his wines, would say that the Cabernet is the skeleton; the Carignan, the flesh and the Cinsault the perfume. It was one of the many sayings that the dapper bon viveur enjoyed trotting out.

He also loved telling anyone who would listen that ‘my best reds are my whites’ implying that he believed his Chateau white, a blend of indigenous Merwah and Obeideh grown on the sea-facing foothills of Mount Lebanon, were even more complex than his reds. Oxidative and lush, with notes of ripe citrus and honey, overlaid with almonds and brioche, it has a remarkable capacity for aging and developing a wonderful complexity.

There is also a Chateau rosé, but be warned, it’s no whispering angel. More orange than any shade of pink, it is truly one for the aficionados and probably the most ‘difficult’ wine of the Chateau trio. The first time I drank it was in 2014 with Mondo Vino filmmaker, Jonathan Nossiter, overlooking Batroun Bay in North Lebanon. My tasting note read “it is as if someone smoked a Cohiba over a punnet of strawberries while sitting a leather upholstered Jensen”.

Serge Hochar died in a swimming accident in Acapulco on New year’s Eve 2014. He was 75. A dramatic death under the Pacific sky was arguably a fitting end for a man who lived an epic life. His protégé Tarek Sakr makes the wines according to the traditional formula and the latest vintage, the 2018 (the wines are released after seven years) is showing beautifully with cherries and strawberries dominating a wine which Hochar Serge would have called a newborn baby.

One thing is certain; they age with grace, elegance and character and that is why collectors love them.

Michael Karam is a journalist, editor and wine writer. He is the author of Wines of Lebanon and a contributor to Jancis Robinson’s Oxford Companion to Wine and The World Atlas of Wine