Our Winemakers and You: A Musar Steeped in History

Our partner winemakers carry a heritage, sometimes thousands of years old, that they must pass on through their wines. This is no easy task, and as consumers, our connection with the winemakers can sometimes be tenuous. To honour them and show how history and terroir shape an estate’s heritage, here is the story of Château Musar, which makes its wine in the very cradle of agriculture, winemaking and trade, producing a wine that is both subtle and complex.

An estate with a millennia-old heritage

Château Musar wines are the fruit of an ancient tradition, rooted in a country with a millennia-old winemaking culture. For more than 6,000 years, vines in Lebanon’s high-altitude Bekaa Valley have been carefully cultivated to produce wines unlike any other.

As early as the 5th millennium BC, the Phoenicians traded both their wines and their vines throughout the Mediterranean. Aboard their sturdy cedar ships, they travelled as far as Cádiz, and perhaps even beyond. They even invented the first alphabet to keep records of their commercial transactions.

The ancient city of Baalbek, in the northern Bekaa Valley, takes its name from Baal, the Phoenician god of fertility. Later, the Roman god Bacchus was worshipped there, and the temples built in his honour are among the best-preserved in the world. The region’s wines are mentioned many times in the Bible, and the earliest recorded evidence of wine transactions comes from Byblos, a historic fishing port north of Beirut whose name means "book" in Greek.

The Hochar family, originally from France, arrived on Lebanon’s shores centuries later — in the 12th century, to be precise — to cultivate their vineyard in the cradle of wine. They have remained there ever since.

In the land of milk and honey

Lebanon, bordered by Syria to the north and east and Israel to the south, lies at the eastern end of the Mediterranean and is similar in size to Wales. The Lebanon and Anti-Lebanon mountain ranges run in parallel, enclosing the Bekaa Valley between them.

The country’s favourable geography and climate have always promised an abundance of riches. Part of the Fertile Crescent, where agriculture developed 10,000 years ago, this region was among the first to see the rise of vine cultivation.

At 34° north of the equator, the central Bekaa Valley lies further south than any part of Spain or Italy, so it gets plenty of sunshine during the summer months. Musar’s vineyards benefit in two ways: they sit at relatively high altitudes (around 1,000 metres above sea level) and have limestone, gravelly and stony soils that encourage the production of high-quality grapes.

Vineyards at this altitude benefit from cool night-time temperatures and marked seasonal contrasts (snow often falls on the vines in winter, while summers can be very hot), resulting in longer ripening periods. The vines thrive in a pristine mountain environment and need almost no human intervention to flourish.

An age-old respect for the vine

Château Musar’s red-wine vineyards lie towards the southern end of the Bekaa Valley, north of Lake Qaroun and around 30 km south-east of Beirut. They are near the villages of Aana and Kefraya, on gravelly limestone soils ideally suited to viticulture. The wide variety of soil types and aspects produces wines with distinctive character and blends of remarkable complexity.

Château Musar red is made from Cabernet Sauvignon and the southern Rhône Valley varieties Cinsault and Carignan, from established, mature vines yielding a maximum of 30 to 35 hectolitres per hectare.

The ancient indigenous white grape varieties Obaideh and Merwah, which prefer slightly cooler conditions than the reds, are grown in vineyards even higher up the mountainsides, around 1,500 metres above sea level.

All Musar wines are made naturally, following a "non-interventionist" winemaking philosophy. In 2006, the estate became the first in Lebanon to introduce certified organic viticulture for its Château Musar red and white grapes.

"As winemakers, we are blessed to work with a living thing, and it is unthinkable to sacrifice it"

Serge Hochar

Beyond the mountains

Many people wonder why Château Musar’s winery is an hour’s drive from its vineyards in the Bekaa Valley. When Gaston Hochar began making wine in 1930, Lebanon’s borders had not been defined, and he wanted to make sure his facilities would be within the new country’s boundaries. So he chose to establish his winery in the family’s 18th-century château overlooking the Mediterranean in Ghazir, a Maronite Christian enclave around 20 km north of Beirut. Its Arabic name is M’zar, meaning "place of extraordinary beauty" or "shrine to visit". This is where the estate’s name comes from.

As the business grew, new cellars were built into the nearby mountainside, providing perfect conditions for long-term wine storage. The cellars were so secure that Ghazir’s residents used them as air-raid shelters during the Lebanese Civil War (1975–1990).

At harvest time, Bedouins pick the grapes by hand in the cool of the morning to preserve their freshness, before transporting them by large lorries over the mountains to the winery in Ghazir.

Seven years of work

The grapes for Château Musar red are fermented separately in concrete vats, racked about six months after harvest, then aged for twelve months in French Nevers oak barrels, only a small proportion of which are replaced each year. The Cabernet Sauvignon, Cinsault and Carignan wines are blended to reflect the individual strengths and characteristics of the vintage, then bottled without filtration at the end of the third year after harvest. Blending is an intrinsic part of the art of winemaking at Château Musar. Wines from different vineyards are constantly tasted to understand their personalities and characteristics: it is winemaking by instinct. The final blend is aged for a further three to four years in bottle before being released in its seventh year.

Château Musar Blanc is also fermented in Nevers oak barrels for 6 to 9 months, bottled and blended after its first year, then kept in Musar’s cellars for a further six years before release. The white, which has been compared to a ‘mature white Graves’, will keep for many years, just like the red.

"If you give my wines more time, they will give you more joy."

Serge Hochar.

History works up an appetite, so we’ve put together a Lebanese menu just for you! Take a look!