I find it curious that the regions that gave birth to wine are today so lacking in world renown for their wine. Lebanon and its Chateau Musar seem to be the exception. The Académie du Vin has just put out a beautiful volume, Chateau Musar: The Story of a Wine Icon, about the history of winery and its owners, the Hochar family (pronounced ho-shar, as I learned). Front and center, of course, is Serge Hochar, the dynamic family figurehead who has inspired so many with his charm and chameleon, terroir-driven wines.

Chateau Musar was founded in 1930 by Gaston Hochar Sr., who fell in love with wine while studying medicine in Paris, eventually diverting from that career to one as a winemaker in Lebanon. Children soon followed, among them brothers Serge and Ronald, who would inherit the family business. Serge would study winemaking at the University of Bordeaux and take over winemaking duties from his father in 1959. Ronald—the practical counterweight to Serge’s ceaseless charisma—took ownership of all things financial.

But how does any winery survive in a land that refuses to be at peace? “People fought their wars on our land” is Serge’s assessment of it all: the wars and constant tensions to which the Hochars have sadly become accustomed. All they’ve ever wanted is to make wine worthy of the country they love, despite (and maybe even a bit for) its irascibility. And they have done just that, failing to produce wine just once (1976) in the Chateau’s ninety-year history.

As the book details, the Hochars and their team often risked their lives to make wine: pickers picking grapes beneath artillery and gunfire from dug-in militias; Serge, on several occasions, somehow avoiding execution checkpoints (where “the wrong last name or accent” could mean death) on the road from the Musar vineyards in the Beka’a Valley to the winery in Ghazir; and the time Serge arrived at the winery just moments before two rockets hit the road on which he had just been driving.

Through the decades, through so much very real danger, it’s Chateau Musar’s longevity that’s most astonishing.

When times were tough in Lebanon, as they often were, Serge and Ronald were wise enough to look for markets elsewhere. (And wise enough to move their families out of the country!) London is where the momentum really picked up, with the Hochars insisting on hosting promotional tastings themselves, knowing that they alone (especially Serge) could captivate wine buyers with the story of their wine. That today Chateau Musar is sold in 70 countries worldwide is a testament to their hard work, and frankly to the winery’s incredible story.

Family, Lebanon, and wine—that’s what the Hochars are about. With Serge gone (tragically, he drowned in the Mexico sea on New Years Eve 2014), the mantle has been taken up by Serge’s sons, Gaston and Marc, and Ronald’s son, Ralph. Family businesses don’t always survive generational hand offs, but Chateau Musar is looking to do so once again, and looks to be in good hands with these passionate, driven three. 

I actually learned as much about Lebanon in this book as I did the Hochar family. That’s only appropriate. Chateau Musar simply cannot be separated from its cultural and geopolitical context. My curiosity, too, has been piqued, as I’ll now be on the hunt for a bottle of Musar white—a wine Serge insisted be served after his reds—a blend of Obaideh and Merwah, two varietals I’ve never tried.

Next time I drink a Musar, I’ll think of the land it came from and the people who dared make it.

My Recommendation
This is a perfect wine lover’s coffee table book. The volume is nicely bound and full of beautiful photographs. I read it cover to cover and loved it; but practically speaking, I think it will to folks mostly as a pretty book to sit on the table for guests to thumb through.