Dear Ones - A great man passed away this week. I want to try to honor him today. Serge Hochar was a winemaker from Lebanon — the master behind Chateau Musar wines, which are celebrated worldwide for their extraordinary complexity. I wrote a profile of him years ago in GQ magazine, and I found him to be one of the most electrifying men Ive ever met. He was a man possessed by extraordinary passion, curiosity, courage and joy. During the entire seventeen years of the war in Lebanon, he managed to keep his vineyards in operation and his wines in production, even when bombs were (literally) falling all around him. He felt it was his moral duty to keep making wine — as a defense of civilization, during the worst of human brutality. The first wines in the world came from Lebanon, thousands of years ago. The wines that are mentioned in the Bible come from Lebanon. Serge felt that the entire history of this region was woven into his wines, and that —therefore — he was duty-bound to defend the tradition and to uphold it. I spent several days in Beirut with Serge, and they were among the most extraordinary of my life. He showed me what to eat and he taught me how to drink. One afternoon, we opened a bottle of 1972 Chateau Musar, and we slowly drank it, over the course of several hours. He encouraged me to notice how much the wine changed over those hours — and indeed it was true that the final sip tasted completely different than the first. He said, That is because wine is a living being. When you encounter a bottle of wine, it is always a case of life meeting life. Especially if there is truth in the making of it. Watch how the wine changes, and watch how you change with it. He warned me against judging any wine too quickly. We must let it grow, he said. We must see what it becomes, because it is alive. Then he said something Ive never forgotten. He said: It is the same with people. He warned me never to judge people too quickly — because they are alive, and because life is always changing. People go through seasons in their lives, just like wines do. They shift, they grow, they move. Sometimes you have to wait it out and give a person time — to see who they become, and to see what fate does to them over the years. (Again, it is a case of life meeting life, and anything can happen when life is session.) I cannot tell you how many times I have thought of those words over the years — especially when I am in conflict or crisis with someone, and I want to dismiss them or write them off. I think of Serge saying, Wait. Dont judge them yet. Its too soon to tell. Life is happening. Let us wait and see what they become — and what you become. He was a great, great man. Serge Hochar died over the New Years weekend. He drowned in the Pacific Ocean, while on vacation with his family. He had just celebrated his 75th birthday. All of us who knew him assumed he would last forever. He seemed larger than life. But it must have been his time. As he himself would have said with a shrug and a smile, That is what I call fate. Here is the story I wrote about him years ago, if you want to read it. I just read it again this morning, through tears, and he has inspired me all over again: bit.ly/1Bs6QiO LIFE MEETING LIFE. Thats all there is. ONWARD, LG
Posted on: Sat, 03 Jan 2015 20:42:03 +0000
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