Chateau Musar

In 1930, at just 20 years old, Gaston Hochar founded Chateau Musar, inspired by Lebanon’s winemaking tradition and his travels in Bordeaux. Serge Hochar, Gaston’s eldest son, with the encouragement of his father, studied under Emile Peynaud at the University of Oenology in Bordeaux. He became Chateau Musar’s winemaker in 1959, spent 18 years perfecting the formula for Chateau Musar’s Red and was selected as Decanter Magazine’s first ‘Man of the Year’ in 1984. Serge’s two sons: Gaston and Marc now manage the day-to-day running of the winery and its commercial aspects.

Serge’s brother, Ronald, having studied law, made contributions to commercial and logistical aspects that remain vital to the business. Ronald’s son, Ralph, focuses on Southeast Asia from Chateau Musar’s UK office and his daughter, Elsa, produced a documentary film about the family and winery

Chateau Musar’s winery is one hour drive from the vineyards in the family’s 18th century castle overlooking the Mediterranean at Ghazir, about 20 km north of Beirut. Its name in Arabic is ‘M’zar’:place of extraordinary beauty/shrine to be visited. As the company expanded, cellars were built into the mountainside nearby, providing perfect conditions for long term wine storage. 

The wines of Chateau Musar are unique expressions from a country with an ancient wine-making culture, vines have been cultivated in Lebanon’s high altitude Bekaa Valley for over 6,000 years. The Musar vineyards are blessed in two ways: they are situated at relatively high altitudes, benefiting from longer ripening periods, and have just the kind of calcareous, gravel and stone soils that encourage the production of high quality grapes.

The grapes used to make Chateau Musar Red are Cabernet Sauvignon, Cinsault and Carignan from long established, mature vines. The ancient and indigenous white grapes of Obaideh and Merwah which prefer slightly cooler conditions are grown in vineyards at even higher altitudes on the mountain slopes.

Every wine at Musar is produced naturally with a ‘non-interventionist’ wine making philosophy and the winery was the first in Lebanon to implement organically certified viticulture in 2006 for its Chateau Musar red and white grapes.