Chateau Musar’s Legacy Lives On. A Lebanon Wine Story

With the third generation at the helm, Chateau Musar of Lebanon faces challenges and triumphs alike with aplomb. Nimmi Malhotra reports

For the last 89 years, Chateau Musar has crafted wines with a unique Lebanese signature despite being in a constant state of war and turmoil

Had there been no war in Lebanon, probably the story of Chateau Musar would not be as it is today,” says Ralph Hochar, the third-generation custodian of the winery. For the last 89 years, Chateau Musar has crafted wines with a unique Lebanese signature. That the country has been in a constant state of war and turmoil hasn’t stopped the winery. With the exception of two vintages — the 1976 and 1984, the wines have been produced every year, shells and war irrespective.

Chateau Musar’s flagship red is moody, imperfect, and yet, intense and memorable. “When people opened a bottle in New York or Tokyo, they were uncorking conflict. There was a whiff of war in every bottle of wine that they opened,” says Michael Karam, author of “Wines of Lebanon”, in the documentary War and Wine (2020) which focused on wines of the Middle East. If anything, war has inadvertently framed its success.

THE ROAD TO ACCLAIM

Wine has deep roots in Lebanon, dating back to 6000 years. Gaston Hochar revived winemaking when he laid down vineyards in Lebanon in the 1930s. His son, the late Serge Hochar, studied oenology under Émile Peynaud, took over the winemaking in 1960 and added his unique imprint on the wine. As the civil war raged over the land in 1970 and local wine sales dropped by 90%, Serge and his brother, Ronald, brought the wines to London in suitcases to find an international market for their labour of love. Famously, at the Bristol Wine Fair of 1979, acclaimed wine critic Michael Broadbent awarded Chateau Musar 1967 the top prize, and the cult status was born.

Serge Hochar became the driving force behind the winery’s success, travelling across the world to promote his wines and leaving a trail of friends, fans, and admirers. When he died in 2015, the wine world mourned him deeply. Not only had he established Chateau Musar but re-ignited the Lebanese wine industry.

It helped that the wines were individualistic. Broadbent captures their unique quality astutely when he says they were neither Bordeaux nor Burgundy nor trying to imitate any other wines. Since Gaston Hochar was inspired by Bordeaux, axiomatically, the wine leads with Cabernet Sauvignon, the main actor of the hallowed French region. In other cases, based on vintage conditions, Cinsault, the Southern French varietal, is more prominent (as is with the 2015 vintage). Carignan also features in small doses, as does Mourvedre and Syrah. The wine is aged in French oak and released at leisure -— some seven years after the harvest. With age (ideally, around 15 years), the wine unfurls its true personality — savoury, spicy, broody. Wine critics have always faulted it for high volatile acidity, but fans don’t seem to care.

As the civil war raged over the land in 1970 and local wine sales dropped by 90%, Serge and his brother, Ronald, brought the wines to London in suitcases

Chateau Musar’s white wine isn’t as well-known and often called an oddity by experts. An oxidative style wine, it relies on native grapes — Obaideh and Merwah, indigenous to the mountains of Lebanon and reminiscent of Chasselas, Chardonnay and Semillion. The vineyards are located 30 km southeast of Beirut, in Bekka Valley (quite close to the Syrian border), at 1,000 metres above sea level. There, on sunny gravel and limestone soils, the grapes grow organically, with minimal intervention.

Ralph Hochar, Gaston’s grandson, shares his family stories as he presents the wine to a Singaporean audience. “In the early days, Lebanon’s border lines were sketchy, so my grandfather didn’t buy the vineyards.” He was justifiably unsure of the political scene. Lebanon’s location is precarious, abutted by Syria in the north and east, and Israel in the south. “It was no man’s land. No one knew if the Bekaa Valley would remain in Lebanon or integrated in Syria or Israel,” he says.

“Wine does not care about war or no war because yeast makes the wine, even if people are fighting” — Serge Hochar

The Ghazir winery is situated 70 km away from the vineyards in Bekaa Valley, which posed unique challenges during the war years. For example, in 1984, when the roads throughout Lebanon were blocked, the grapes had to be put on a ferry and reached the winery five days later, fermenting in their own juices.

“Wine does not care about war or no war because yeast makes the wine, even if people are fighting.” Serge Hochar lent his voice to the same documentary. As with wine, the work at Musar continues.

Chateau Musar is now under the stewardship of Ronald Hochar and the third generation — Serge’s two sons, Gaston and Marc, look after the winemaking and Ronald’s son, Ralph Hochar, looks after international markets. Around them, the Lebanese wine industry has grown to almost 50 producers and among them are some known names like Chateau Kefraya, IXSIR and Chateau Ksara. Planting vines is symbolic of putting down roots and committing to their ancestors’ land.

However, the wine industry is facing a new challenge. This time, it’s not a war but the Lebanese financial crisis that took hold in 2019.

“Everybody had COVID issues, but for us, it was COVID and the financial meltdown of the market,” says Ralph Hochar in a matter-of-act tone. Years of war have bolstered the wine industry’s resolve to survive despite everything. The Lebanese pound has lost 1/6th of its value, driving up the cost of imports and wiping away savings. The local credit cards are blocked, and unless a business has a foreign bank account, it cannot pay for goods and products outside the country. For Lebanese wineries, which rely on imports for most products like bottles, labels etc, it makes the day-to-day operations extremely challenging.

“No one gives credit to Lebanon anymore. If you’re a Lebanese wine producer and want to buy bottles from a European manufacturer, it’s a pro forma payment (pay before delivery),” says Ralph. Also, Lebanon does not have access to 24-hours electricity and shipping the wines is mired in delays. Ralph adds: “There are fewer containers coming to Lebanon, making it trickier for us to be able to export our own wines outside of Lebanon.”

Exports are the lifeline of wineries as local consumption has largely dried up. Chateau Musar is a little insulated since Serge and Ronald Hochar established the export markets back in the day. Today, 85% of the production is exported to 75 countries, and they can confidently introduce new wines like the second wine, Hochar Pere and Fils and a youthful unoaked range of Musar Jeune.

The Musar Jeune range is organically farmed and unoaked. It offers a red blend, a white and a rosé. The fruit-driven red is made with Cinsault, Syrah and Cabernet Sauvignon and aged in cement-lined vats for a year. In contrast, the white is an expression of Viognier, Vermentino and Chardonnay. The grapes are bought from long-term contract growers.

Acutely aware of workforce shortages across the hospitality industry, the back label is redesigned to offer key details about the grapes and region to help the server talk about the wine. The front label’s redesign shows an attractive “ripple in the water”, adding a touch of modernity to the traditional house.

Adding to the political trouble is climate change which has not spared Bekaa Valley. The vintage of 2015 was viticulturally, the hardest faced by the chateau. First the cold decimated the buds and later the heat reduced the yields. Ralph notes, “In less than ten years, we have moved the harvest from September to three weeks earlier to early August. It’s quite a big change.”

But there is no talk of moving to calmer shores. Instead, Musar is modernising the winery and is planning to increase capacity over the next five years. “We’ve been very busy for the last seven years continuing the legacy of my uncle and making sure that the business will continue to expand,” Ralph says. With Chateau Musar high in demand, the Jeune range is helping the family-run business open new markets.

When asked if Chateau Musar will ever expand beyond Lebanon, Ralph gave a mixed response. He reflected on the 40 years it’s taken them to arrive at this point and wondered where else in the world they might have bought vineyards. His conclusion: “At the end of the day, we have realised that Chateau Musar outside of Lebanon will never be Chateau Musar.”