Gaston Hochar

Bekaah Reds instead of Beirute Blues...

A must have for wine lovers that defend biodiversity...

What Lebanese stories outside pure politics would help in making three-dimensional the conflict around the possession of the margins of the Litani River? Perhaps the epic tale of the wines of Gaston Hochar, from Chateau Musar, the Lebanese “Grand Cru”? With vineyards in the Bekaah Valley almost contiguous to the front lines, the continuity of that wine is an elegy to the Lebanese determination to move on. The ardour of the battles in 1983 right in harvest time made the oenologist son, Serge, to infiltrate clandestinely into their own properties to lead the vintage campaign. The family’s wine stronghold, the Ghazir Castle, was several times hit by artillery fire. There were even times when the caves of the winery had “dual-use”, employed to stock the barrels alright but also to serve as an improvised bunker for the near-panicking local population against bombardments. Can one “understand” the Bordeaux area never having tasted a Grand Cru? Isn’t it the case that each time I’m quietly enjoying a bottle of Château Musar I’m advancing an extra bit in the understanding of Lebanon? To make wine in the Arab world is always a sensible issue, and to have the arrogance to produce it according to classical canon, the French way, is quintessential Lebanese. It has something of transgression of the Coranic consuetudinary but also of a tongue-in-cheek challenging of European patronizing ways. It’s a wine one drinks with political enjoyment, so to speak. (I cherish the memory of the bottle of a 1967 I’ve opened this Summer to honour the cessation of hostilities on the way to a cease-fire).