The remarkable story of this property started in 1930 when Château Musar was established in an old 18th century castle by Serge Hochar's father, Gaston. The château itself is to be found at Ghazir, about fifteen miles north of Beirut, whilst the property's vines are situated about 20 miles to the east, in the Bekaa Valley, on the eastern slopes of Mount Barouk. Serge Hochar studied oenology at the University of Bordeaux in the 1960's, having taken on the rôle of wine-maker in 1959. Whilst in Bordeaux, he worked with the Barton family where he observed the benefits of de-stemming and new French oak-barrel maturation. Today, Serge Hochar runs the estate with his brother, Ronald, and it is still, without doubt, the most important wine estate in the Lebanon, with 130 hectares of grapes under plantation - mainly Cabernet Sauvignon and Cinsault for the red (with a small dose of Syrah) and un-grafted Merwah (Semillon) and Obaideh (the indigenous Chardonnay) for the white. The red is aged for up to 24 months in Nevers oak and is then stored in bottle for a further five years.
The 1999 red is a soft, aromatic and fragrant style Musar with an admirable cedarwood, coffee and dates nose and a soft, spicy and gamey fruit with fine acidity. The 1998 white, aged for six months in French oak, has a hint of marzipan and acacia on the nose, with a smoky, full-bodied apricot fruitiness on the palate. These are two very unique wines! We have recently noticed a tendency of some wine writers to knock Hochar for releasing his wines too late and, therefore, giving them an oxidised character. They seem to prefer their Lebanese reds to be look-a-like Barossa Shiraz or Chilean Merlot. Well, we don't as the whole world is full of these homogenous-style wines and what makes the likes of Hochar tick is the idiosyncratic nature of his wines made from grape varieties that have a proven track record with the 'terroir' of the Bekaa Valley. Vive la difference!
The story of the Tanail Estate dates back to the beginning of the 1970s when the Ghosn family owned a large piece of land planted with table vines. At the beginning they made homemade Arak from the grapes grown on the property. Sami and Ramzi Ghosn, the owners, learnt to love nature and it's greatest product - wine - during their childhood, but in 1975, war forced the Ghosn family to leave the estate, although they always knew they would return. Seventeen years later Sami Ghosn, by then an architect working in Los Angeles, returned to Lebanon and revisited the war-ravaged family estate. The land worked its magic and he decided to give up everything in order to devote himself to bringing the domain back to life. (This somehow makes the present return to war all the more heartbreaking and we can only pray that normality returns soon). He revived the distillation of homemade arak and entrusted marketing to his brother Ramzi, who was at that time settled in France, managing his own restaurant company. The famous blue bottles of Arak were an instant success.
Tanail was reborn from its ashes but Sami Ghosn had still greater ambitions.As far as he is concerned it is no coincidence that the Romans chose the Bekaa Valley as the site to build the temple of Bacchus in homage to their god of wine. The Ghosn brothers were determined to realize their dream by bringing to life great wines at their Tanaïl Property. To do this they decided to bring in priceless know-how to one of the world's oldest wine producing regions. On 27 May, 1998, a partnership was formed with an ambition to produce a world class Lebanese wine in the Bekaa Valley. It brought together The Ghosn brothers - Sami and Ramzi - and Dominique Hébrard, owner of Chateau Trianon (and previous owner of Ch Cheval Blanc) and the Brunier brothers, Daniel and Frédéric, co-proprietor at Le Vieux Télégraphe.
The new wine was to have a limited annual production and it was to be called Massaya, named after the time of day when twilight sets on the vineyard and the sky turns purple as the sun sets behind Mount-Lebanon. This prestigious Franco-Lebanese collaboration has united great men of wine and created optimum conditions for making great wine, taking advantage of the exceptional soil here in the Bekaa.
The vineyards of the Tanaïl Estate are located at an altitude of 1000 meters above sea level in the Bekaa Valley, where the slopes are protected by Mount Lebanon and the Anti -Lebanon mountains. Free of frost and disease, the Bekaa Valley enjoys a unique climate with long gentle summers, wet winters and an average temperature of 25 degrees that is perfect for viticulture.
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