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Why Wine Insiders Are Obsessed with Lebanon’s Château Musar

by - In an industry beset by trends, Château Musar, an 87-year-old Lebanese wine producer, has garnered a cult following. It’s the only Middle Eastern wine offered by Thomas Keller’s legendary French Laundry restaurant in Yountville, California, and it displays prominently at New York City’s Rouge Tomate. Manhattan’s Terroir Tribeca has a dedicated section titled, “All Hail the Almighty Château Musar.” When winemaker Serge Hochar died unexpectedly in December 2014, he was mourned in almost every major wine publication. How did Château Musar become the sole Middle Eastern producer to earn a spot on the international stage of wine icons?

The Beirut-based Château Musar, founded in 1930 by Gaston Hochar, initially burst onto the international scene in 1979, when it dazzled attendees of the Bristol Wine Fair under the helm of Gaston’s son, Serge. A British favorite thereafter, it didn’t gain acclaim in the U.S. until around 2000, when sommeliers and wine lovers alike began clamoring for the non-interventionist, natural bottles of red, white, and rosé Château Musar. While the key to Château Musar’s success is by no means singular, a simple reality set it up for success: It was available and actively marketed outside of Lebanon.

 

“The family’s foresight to sell the wines internationally and Serge’s very eloquent championing of them certainly has a lot to do with [the winery’s popularity],” says Christy Frank, wine buyer of Copake Wine Works in Copake, New York. For Musar’s first 40 years, the wine was largely consumed in its home country, but the 1972 onset of civil war almost eliminated that market. Serge, who continued to produce wine throughout the 20-year war, made a strong push for Château Musar in international markets.

 

But something caused wine professionals to fall head over heels for what was inside the Musar bottles and, counterintuitively, it was exactly what could have caused sommeliers to turn their heads in disgust: the unique, funky, savory, volatile, complex character of the wine.

 

“When you stuck your schnozz in a glass of Musar, there was no other wine on the planet Earth that tasted like it,” notes Paul Grieco, proprietor of Terroir Tribeca and Terroir on the Porch in New York. These were no ordinary wines. They were unusual and animalistic, dominated by non-fruit and earth, and until recent years, the “flawed” compounds of volatile acidity and brettanomyces. While many would call them pleasurable, few would call them approachable.

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by Salah Takieddine BEIRUT,  (Xinhua) -- Lebanese businessmen who have participated in the China-Arab States Expo in the northwestern Chinese city of Yinchuan expressed hopes that this event could produce positive results for the Lebanese economy. "The participation in the expo was very important for us and hope that we would have an important cooperation with the Chinese," Lebanese former Finance Minister Raya al-Hassan told Xinhua, revealing that two agreements related to the Special Economic Zone for Tripoli have been signed with the Chinese Chamber of Commerce and the Yinchuan Technology Zone. Al-Hassan, who is also the head of Tripoli Special Economic Zone Authority, hailed the expo as an opportunity for Lebanon to exhibit its manufactures and know the needs of the Chinese market. "We are interested in attracting the Chinese investments to Tripoli. Chinese companies are visiting Tripoli and show their interest in reactivating the Silk Road and it is a matter of great importance for both countries and has a definite positive effect on Lebanon," she said.

According to the Lebanese business official, Lebanon's exports to China total about 6 million U.S. dollars while the country imports 2 billion dollars' worth of products from China. "After our participation, we discovered that we can include in our exports that China needs, such as olive oil and wine," she explained. A number of Lebanese commercial and industrial companies participated in the expo and had a distinctive presence. Amir Hassoun, head of the development and marketing department in the Khan al Saboun factory of Badr Hassoun in Tripoli, said China has facilitated "investments for the Lebanese businessmen and industrialists." "We exhibited our products in the expo and found an interesting acceptance," Hassoun said. "We exhibited about 1,400 kinds of soap products." During the expo, Lebanese Minister of Economy and Trade Raed Khouri, who is also the head of the country's delegation to the expo, signed a memorandum of understanding (MoU) with the Chinese government to promote economic cooperation between the two countries under the framework of the Belt and Road Initiative proposed by Chinese President Xi Jinping in 2013. According to the MoU, the two countries agreed to work together to achieve common development, and enhance both political and economic ties. The four-day event was inaugurated on Sept. 6, with the participation of 43 ministers and high-ranking officials from Arab countries and 117 representatives from commerce chambers in China and Arab countries.

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Maria Rada-Soto| The Daily Star   - BEIRUT: The American University of Beirut was ranked first in the MENA region for the second year in a row in the rigorous 2018 QS Graduate Employability Ranking, released Tuesday. The annual graduate employability ranking, produced by the QS Intelligence Unit, rated AUB 41 out of the 500 ranked institutions from around the world, and No. 1 in the MENA region, putting it in the top 8 percent of universities worldwide. The second-highest-ranked institution in the region was placed over 100 spots below AUB, between places 141 and 150. No other institution from the MENA region, out of the 26 included, was ranked among the top 200.

“The importance of the latest QS university employability rankings is that they show that the students of the American University of Beirut are among the most highly sought by employers globally,” AUB President Fadlo Khuri told The Daily Star. “We are not the least bit surprised that employers consider our students to be the most talented and employable from South Africa to Russia, from India to Greece and Turkey. They are genuinely formidable and ethical young people.” Khuri said that in addition to the “invaluable and reproducible set of skills” gained through an AUB education, graduates also leave the university with a “rich vein of values.” “These are the values that can build not only great companies but enduring and inclusive societies,” he said.

For Rami Khouri, senior public policy fellow and adjunct professor of journalism at AUB, the university’s high ranking is due to three factors that reflect both its location and American liberal higher education tradition: “A core focus on research and producing new knowledge, rather than just reading other people’s texts; a deep commitment to open public discussion and dialogue on all topics, in and out of class; and an emphasis on training students to use their minds, think on their feet and be creative and dynamic in order to address challenges in their lives.”

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by AP - Lebanese film director Ziad Doueiri, who was detained briefly for previous visits to Israel, lashed back against critics who accused him of normalisation with the Jewish state. He said on Monday that his work is for the good of Lebanon and the Palestinian cause. It was not clear why the Paris-based Doueiri, director of the award-winning civil war film "West Beirut," was detained Sunday night, as he has visited Lebanon several times since traveling to Israel. Lebanon and Israel are in a state of war and Beirut bans its citizens from visiting Israel or having business dealings with Israelis.

Doueiri told reporters after three hours of questioning at a military court in Beirut Monday that authorities found that he has "no criminal intentions against the Palestinian cause." Doueiri's latest film, "The Insult," opens in Lebanon this week, after winning the best actor award at the Venice Film Festival earlier this month. Doueiri said that Kamel El Basha, the Palestinian awarded best actor at the Venice Film Festival, spent two years in Israeli jails. He said some journalists are trying to undermine him ahead of the film showing in Beirut, which begins on Thursday. Doueiri's previous film, "The Attack," was banned in Lebanon and most Arab countries. The movie is about a Palestinian surgeon living in Tel Aviv who discovers that a suicide attack in the city that killed 17 people was carried out by his wife. The movie was filmed in Israel and featured several Israeli actors.

Lebanese journalist Pierre Abi Saab, who is opposed to any dealings with Israel, wrote a column in the daily Al-Akhbar last week titled "Ziad Doeiri, apologize for your Israeli slip." He said that Doueiri spent months in Israel to film "The Attack," spending money there and speaking to Israeli media defending his movie amid criticism in Lebanon. "Today, Ziad Doueiri is coming on a white horse from Venice with a new movie expecting us to carry him on our shoulders and welcome him as a conqueror," Abi Saab wrote. "We will not accept that the crime be covered," he wrote, referring to Doueiri's visits to Israel. Speaking to reporters outside the military court, Doueiri said he was well treated by Lebanese security agencies during his brief detention but blasted journalists he refused to name "that are fabricating things to block the new movie." He said they used "dirty words against some people and accused them of being Zionists." "My mother breastfed me Palestinian milk and the Palestinian cause. Members of my family were killed while fighting with the Palestinians," Doueiri said.

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By middleeastmonitor.com Lebanon will file a complaint to the United Nations against Israel for violating the country’s airspace and causing damage by breaking the sound barrier in the south of the country, its foreign minister said today. Israeli jets flew low over the southern city of Saida yesterday, causing sonic booms that broke windows and shook buildings for the first time in years, Lebanese security sources and residents said. “We have started preparing to file a complaint to the [UN] Security Council against Israel for flying its planes at low altitude… causing material, moral and sovereign damage,” Foreign Minister Gebran Bassil said in a tweet. Prime Minister Saad Al-Hariri said Lebanon would issue its complaint “against Israel for planting spy devices on Lebanese land and continously breaching” its airspace, his office said. Israeli warplanes regularly enter Lebanon’s airspace, the Lebanese army says, but rarely fly so low. The Israeli military gave no immediate comment. Tensions have risen recently between Lebanon’s Hezbollah and Israel, which fought a month-long war in 2006. The 2006 war killed around 1,200 people in Lebanon, mostly civilians, and 160 Israelis, most of them troops. Israel has targeted Iran-backed Hezbollah inside Syria in recent years, including military leaders in several deadly strikes, but there has been no major direct confrontation.

By middleeastmonitor.com Lebanon will file a complaint to the United Nations against Israel for violating the country’s airspace and causing damage by breaking the sound barrier in the south of the country, its foreign minister said today. Israeli jets flew low over the southern city of Saida yesterday, causing sonic booms that broke windows and shook buildings for the first time in years, Lebanese security sources and residents said. “We have started preparing to file a complaint to the [UN] Security Council against Israel for flying its planes at low altitude… causing material, moral and sovereign damage,” Foreign Minister Gebran Bassil said in a tweet. Prime Minister Saad Al-Hariri said Lebanon would issue its complaint “against Israel for planting spy devices on Lebanese land and continously breaching” its airspace, his office said. Israeli warplanes regularly enter Lebanon’s airspace, the Lebanese army says, but rarely fly so low. The Israeli military gave no immediate comment. Tensions have risen recently between Lebanon’s Hezbollah and Israel, which fought a month-long war in 2006. The 2006 war killed around 1,200 people in Lebanon, mostly civilians, and 160 Israelis, most of them troops. Israel has targeted Iran-backed Hezbollah inside Syria in recent years, including military leaders in several deadly strikes, but there has been no major direct confrontation.

BEIRUT, Lebanon — “Falafel Sahyoun” reads the awning of one storefront. “Falafel Sahyoun” reads the awning of the other. They’re right next to each other. Only a wall separates the two. And little sets them apart. Both have bright tube lights, mirrors on the walls, falafel balls bubbling in oil. And on both counters sit stacks of bread, plus shiny steel bowls of radish, parsley and a sauce of pounded sesame, known as tarator.

The menus are even identical. Regular sandwich. Sandwich extra. Falafel dozen. Small tarator. Large tarator. Soft drinks. Yogurt.

Both Sahyoun brothers make their sandwiches with falafel, parsley, radish, tomato and tarator, a tahini sauce, all wrapped in thin pita bread. Diego Ibarra Sanchez for The New York Times

 

Mounjad al-Sharif was a child then. On school holidays, he and his friends would come for a falafel sandwich, see a movie at the Automatique, and if they had money left, ride the tram home. Beirut’s long, bitter civil war killed Falafel Sahyoun. The store shut down in 1978, when the fighting got bad, and this part of the city became the front line of a divided city, where rival militias installed their snipers. The year the shop closed, Mustapha Sahyoun died. The tram line is long gone, and so too the Automatique. Falafel Sahyoun reopened in 1992, after the war ended — only to split in two in 2006, when Fuad Sahyoun broke away. He refuses to explain why, saying only that it was for his own “peace of mind.” Zuheir Sahyoun points to his brother’s wife. “Pillow murmuring,” Zuheir grumbles. “His woman.” “My business hasn’t been affected,” Zuheir quickly adds. “I have the same clients. More.” Zuheir’s shop bears a blue crown as its logo. Fuad’s has a yellow crown. At lunchtime, people drive up to one or the other. They take away bags of sandwiches, or they scarf them down sitting behind their steering wheels.

 

 

Students having lunch at Fuad Sahyoun’s shop. Diego Ibarra Sanchez for The New York Times

 

Zuheir insists that his is the original shop, and that he uses his father’s original recipe. He keeps a photo of his father behind the cash register. “Tell your driver, ‘Sahyoun,’ and he’ll know exactly where to bring you,” he says. Fuad dismisses the shop next door as “a fossil.” He hangs a photo of the singer Bryan Adams, eating his falafel sandwich. Across the street still stands an old office building, hollowed out by the war, its blown-out windows like mouths gaping at Falafel Sahyoun and Falafel Sahyoun.

The building across the street was gutted during the civil war and has never been rebuilt. Diego Ibarra Sanchez for The New York Times

 

Mr. Sharif, now a documentary filmmaker, still comes regularly, but only to Fuad’s shop. The falafels here are lighter and better for the stomach, he maintains, and worth an extra 500 Lebanese pounds. That is one difference between the shops. Zuheir’s regular sandwich costs 3,000 Lebanese pounds, equivalent to $2. Fuad’s is 3,500 Lebanese pounds. Fuad’s regular sandwich also has four falafel balls, while Zuheir’s has three. Would Mr. Sharif consider trying the other Falafel Sahyoun? “No. Why to risk?” he asks. He wipes a bit of sauce from the side of his lips and offers a morsel of free advice. “There are two things in life: When you want to eat — eat well,” he says. “When you want to enjoy — enjoy. Next week, I don’t know. I may be dead.” Youmna El Zein, visiting from Senegal with her four children, chooses Zuheir’s shop. Her Lebanese cousins have told her to come to this Sahyoun, she says. Samir Simon is less fussy. It’s just falafel, he says. “This place, that place — it doesn’t matter to me,” he says. “I go to whichever one. I don’t know the difference. It’s the same thing.” The brothers have one thing in common. They are both fond of philosophizing. “The most important thing in life is for the mind to be at peace,” Fuad muses. “If your mind’s not at peace, there’s no point to anything that you do.”

Fuad Sahyoun broke away from his brother’s store in 2006, for reasons he does not want to discuss. Diego Ibarra Sanchez for The New York Times

 


“My brother? I want him to stay away from me,” Zuheir Sahyoun said. Diego Ibarra Sanchez for The New York Times

 

“Unity makes you stronger,” Zuheir says. When his brother first left, he used to wish they could get back together. “Now I’ve stopped wishing.” Lately, the fight has taken a bit of a nasty turn. Fuad has hung on his storefront an enlarged notice from the health department, penalizing Zuheir’s shop for a code violation. It has a red arrow pointing to Zuheir’s shop. “He plays dirty,” Zuheir says. What would he do to avenge his brother’s move? Nothing, Zuheir says and points his index finger up, toward heaven. Then he takes a drag from his cigarette.

The brothers behind their cash registers, just feet away. Diego Ibarra Sanchez for The New York Times
  1. Lebanon holds state funeral for slain soldiers
  2. Ziad Doueiri’s new film The Insult is a metaphor for the fault lines that scar Lebanon
  3. Iran says jailed U.S. student, dual nationals lose spying appeal
  4. Raed Khoury: Lebanon’s Government Stands Despite Divisions
  5. Islamic State convoy in Syria appears to have turned back, U.S.-led coalition says

Khazen History

      

 

Historical Feature:

Churches and Monasteries of the Khazen family

St. Anthony of Padua Church in Ballouneh
Mar Abda Church in Bakaatit Kanaan
Saint Michael Church in Bkaatouta
Saint Therese Church in Qolayaat
Saint Simeon Stylites (مار سمعان العامودي) Church In Ajaltoun
Virgin Mary Church (سيدة المعونات) in Sheilé
Assumption of Mary Church in Ballouneh

1 The sword of the Maronite Prince
2 LES KHAZEN CONSULS DE FRANCE
3 LES MARONITES & LES KHAZEN
4 LES MAAN & LES KHAZEN
5 ORIGINE DE LA FAMILLE
 

Population Movements to Keserwan - The Khazens and The Maans

ما جاء عن الثورة في المقاطعة الكسروانية 

ثورة أهالي كسروان على المشايخ الخوازنة وأسبابها

Origins of the "Prince of Maronite" Title

Growing diversity: the Khazin sheiks and the clergy in the first decades of the 18th century

 Historical Members:

   Barbar Beik El Khazen [English]
   Patriach Toubia Kaiss El Khazen(Biography & Life Part1 Part2) (Arabic)
   Patriach Youssef Dargham El Khazen (Cont'd)
   Cheikh Bishara Jafal El Khazen 
    Patriarch Youssef Raji El Khazen
   The Martyrs Cheikh Philippe & Cheikh Farid El Khazen
   Cheikh Nawfal El Khazen (Consul De France)
   Cheikh Hossun El Khazen (Consul De France)
   Cheikh Abou-Nawfal El Khazen (Consul De France) 
   Cheikh Francis Abee Nader & his son Yousef 
   Cheikh Abou-Kanso El Khazen (Consul De France)
   Cheikh Abou Nader El Khazen
   Cheikh Chafic El Khazen
   Cheikh Keserwan El Khazen
   Cheikh Serhal El Khazen [English] 

    Cheikh Rafiq El Khazen  [English]
    Cheikh Hanna El Khazen

    Cheikha Arzi El Khazen

 

 

Cheikh Jean-Philippe el Khazen website

 

La Creperie Restaurant

 

La Creperie Website