If you are popping corks from most pricey wines, you might as well be swilling Coke.

That's not a claim to be tossed about lightly in the ultra anal-retentive world of wine. But Serge Hochar, the man behind Lebanese winery Chateau Musar, is one of the few oenophiles who not only can, but does make that claim, ever-so-slightly smugly.

He gets away with it because unlike so many wines, his aren't tweaked or tampered with. They aren't filtered. Virtually nothing is added. He lets the yeasts and grapes chart their own course.

And if you care about wine, what makes it good, and how much good wine there will be in the world, you'd best take him — and the formidable reds he produces in Lebanon's Bekaa Valley — seriously.

I first encountered Chateau Musar during a flight to London. A blurb in a glossy food rag gave it high praise. The wines sounded wonderful. They sounded like something I'd never get to taste. Who'd ever heard of Lebanese wine?

Apparently, the Scots had. At dinner in Edinburgh three nights later, I was able to order a bottle. I fell in love. It was lush and deep and bold. Since then, I've found it only twice in the United States.

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Lebanon is no Sonoma or Siena. This is a region of conflict. And the Chateau Musar wines ‚ which Hochar's family has produced since the 1930s — reflect that.

"I make wine in a war region," he said. "I ask myself, 'Has war changed my way of making wine?' Grapes and yeast are not changed by war. But I make the wine and I am affected by war."

And that translates into wines with complexity, a depth that requires focus to penetrate. The effort is rewarded.

So I was thrilled Hochar would appear at this year's Slow Food festival in Turin, where he would lead a tasting flight of six Chateau Musar vintages dating back to a seductive 1964. It's not often you get to taste wines older than you.

Hochar's approach to winemaking makes it obvious why his are so good. And why they belong at a festival dedicated to artisanal foods crafted with concern for the land and people who produce them.

Though not labeled as such, Chateau Musar wines are organic, made from Cabernet Sauvignon, Cinsault and Carignan grapes. The vineyard is even weeded by hand. Such practices don't seem optional to Hochar. They simply are how one makes wine.

Wine is alive, Hochar explained. The yeast that turn sugar into alcohol give life to wine. That life is what gives a wine its character and personality. It is what makes Hochar's wines his friends, children and lovers. All of whom grow and change, gaining wisdom and attitude.

"It's a good vintage," he responds when an attendee asks about 1990. "But I would not make love to it."

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Too many modern wineries, he explains, have forgotten the life within wine. They instead treat it as a commodity, a drink that is filtered, tweaked, adjusted. The result? A drink, Hochar says. But not a wine.

"What do I want from a wine at my age? I ask for truth," he said. "The naked truth. The bare truth. And I want a live wine. Once I drink a wine, the wine must live in my mouth. I want it impressed on my brain."

For this tasting, we sampled wines from 1996, 1995, 1980, 1977, 1969 and 1964.

The '96 was fruity and young. The '95 was earthier and more grounded. Few wines I drink regularly are older than these. So the rest were a real treat.

I found the '80 to have a sharper edge than the '77, which was round and smooth. The fruit of the 90s was mostly absent, replaced by — and Hochar was right — a sort of wisdom.

The '69 and the '64 were stunningly good, smooth and rich and bold. I went back to my glass of '96, which now seems harsh and acidic. The '64 is chocolatey and comforting. This is something I could get used to drinking.

But I can't. Hochar has stopped letting the '64 out of his cellar.

So I am back where I started. Overseas, in love and confident I will never again have the object of my affection. These one night stands are getting wearisome.

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asap columnist J.M. Hirsch covers food, diet and nutrition for the AP. E-mail him at This email address is being protected from spam bots, you need Javascript enabled to view it

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