Chateau Musar White 2018, Bekaa Valley

Pale gold in colour – there is quince, lemon zest, baked apple with a hint of vanilla on the nose. The palate has citrus and subtle herbaceous notes, grapefruit and preserved lemons with an overall impression of ripeness, a lovely freshness and long dry finish. Cellared well, it will keep for decades.

In 1930, 20-year-old Gaston Hochar founded Chateau Musar after his travels in Bordeaux and the rich heritage of winemaking in Lebanon. In 1959 Gaston’s son Serge, took on the running of the business, demanding that his father step aside to let him put his new ideas and methods to the test. That decision was pivotal and over the following years Serge achieved his stated aim of making a wine that would be known all over the world. Today, the Hochar family are still proudly at the helm of their iconic business with Serge’s two sons, Gaston and Marc being responsible for the day-to-day and commercial aspects of the winery. The winemaking methodology is, as Serge Hochar always intended, non-interventionist and natural, with ambient yeasts in the fermentation, a bare minimum of sulphur employed, and no fining or filtration of the finished Chateau Musar wine. It is absolutely the intention that every vintage be different, ‘to make wine on the edge’ as Serge put it. This approach leads to wines that to some are infuriatingly inconsistent and to many others beguilingly so. Let’s give the last word on this to Serge, who was decanter Man of the Year in 1984: ‘I once produced a wine that was technically perfect, but it lacked the charms of imperfection.

The Merwah was fermented and aged in new Nevers oak barrels for 9 months on the lees and the Obaideh was fermented in stainless steel vats, two different fermentation methods to match the two different grape characteristics. Fermentation temperatures for both ranged between 19-23˚C and malo-lactic fermentation went smoothly. It was blended and bottled in the summer of 2017 following cold stabilisation and the vintage released in 2022 after 6 years of ageing.