▻ Marc Hochar
Sarah Kemp in conversation with Marc Hochar of Chateau Musar
Episode Summary:-
Chateau Musar has a particular place in wine lovers’ hearts, not least for its extraordinary aromatics and legendary ability to age like a great Bordeaux. Michael Broadbent first brought it to fame in 1979, when he tasted it at the Bristol Wine Fair and declared it the wine of the fair. The fact it is made in the Beka’a Valley in Lebanon, where war has raged both in the past and of course right now (until the cease-fire a few days ago) makes the story even more remarkable. In this edition of “Great Wine Lives,” Sarah Kemp talks to Marc Hochar about this world-famous estate.
“It has been a difficult year,” Marc states, unsurprisingly, as he tells how they managed to bring in the grape harvest just before the fighting started. The winery is in a quiet village outside Beirut 40 km from the vineyards and has managed so far to avoid the shelling, but he notes that some wineries, closer to the border with Isarel, weren’t so fortunate: “To get people out in the field when you know there is a risk is a great responsibility.”
Marc’s childhood memories are of a unique and complicated mix; in Beirut, during an earlier war, he lived with his cousins, fifteen of them all together in one house. “It was great fun,” he says, almost wonderingly (the most evocative memory is the smell of the grapes arriving in the trucks from the Beka’a Valley, which created huge excitement for a ten-year-old). The unstable situation meant he studied at many different schools, and eventually, when it became too dangerous, the family lived in France, though they always went back to Lebanon for holidays, even during the war. Lebanon had too many issues for Marc to feel his calling was at the winery, and so after an engineering degree he entered the world of finance.
Occasionally he travelled with his father, Serge, to wine events, and says, “I was very impressed by how many people had changed their lives after tasting a bottle of Musar, it was very humbling.” His brother Gaston was already working at Chateau Musar, so it was not a feeling of family duty that brought him back there in his 40s, he explains, more a duty to people who love Musar.
It was Marc’s grandfather, Gaston, who started the winery in 1930 from scratch. The family had lost everything after World War II and Gaston had studied medicine, but wine was his calling. The Musar Castle was owned by cousins, and Gaston started making wine there and selling it to the French army. His father, Serge, took over the winemaking in the late 1950s and early 1960s, and decided to follow the route of non-interventionism – no added yeasts for fermentation, dry farmed, no filtering – rules that Musar still follows today. He also devised the blend for Musar reds: Cinsault, Carignan and Cabernet Franc. “It is all about timing in wine, it’s not making wine” Marc contends.
The Beka’a Valley is at an altitude of 1,000 metres, flanked by two mountain ranges which run north to south, and are 2,000 metres high. The vineyards are protected from the desert by one range and the humidity of the sea by the other. At Musar, they have wide planting, no irrigation, and harvest the bush vines by hand, just as the Phoenicians used to. The Musar whites are made from two indigenous Lebanese grapes, Obaideh and Merwah, and have the ability to age beautifully, as do the reds. “The nose of these wines are for me the most impressive, the smell is so mesmerising, it’s like a meditative state,” Marc declares.
““It’s loved by people who like things that are true, because it reflects life.””
When to open Musar? He advises that here are three distinct spans of ageing: Season one is like Spring, when the wines are between 7-12 years old, and you find aspects of fresh fruit. The second phase is Summer, when the fruit appears to have been baked by the sun, with more concentration in the sugars, which happens around 12-18 years, depending on the vintage. The final state is Fall, at 20 years you have thoroughly developed fruit, but still with the fruit of Spring and Summer in the wine, and this delivers wines of great complexity.
Chateau Musar exports all over the world today, but it was necessity which led to them first exporting and showing at the Bristol Wine Fair back in 1979, when Michael Broadbent so publicly discovered them; before 1975, the wine had been sold locally, but when the domestic market collapsed they were forced to find new markets.
Sustainability has always been part of Musar’s ethos. “Our whole approach is to be as close as possible to nature,” Marc says – they were the first winery to have organic vineyards in Lebanon, back in 2007, he points out, and emphasises again that it is all about non-intervention.
Sarah’s final question is, “Why is Musar so loved?”
“It’s loved by people who like things that are true, because it reflects life,” is Marc’s reply. Perfection is not the aim, authenticity is.
Running Order:-
-
0.00 – 18.25
“To get people out in the fields when you know there is a risk, it is a big responsibility.”
– How the current war has affected Chateau Musar.
– Marc describes growing up at Chateau Musar and abroad.
– Returning to Chateau Musar after a career in finance.
– Advice from his father Serge. -
18.26 – 20.55
“It’s all about timing in wine, it’s not making wine.”
– The history of Chateau Musar.
– Serge Hochar’s direction for Chateau Musar.
– The terroir of the Beka’a Valley.
– Musar’s white wines.
– The age-ability of Musar wines. -
20.56 – 46.20
“It’s loved by people who like things that are true, because it reflects life.”
– When to open Musar wines.
– How Chateau Musar became famous.
– Musar’s approach to sustainability.
– Reasons why people love Musar.
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As war in the Lebanon yet again fills our news channels Sarah Kemp talks to Marc Hochar of Chateau Musar.