Chateau Musar

Chateau Musar, owned by the Hochar family, is one of the most iconic international wineries located in Ghazir, Lebanon, 24 kilometres (15 miles) north of the capital Beirut. Like most of Lebanon’s top wineries, Musar’s grapes are all cultivated in the famous Bekaa Valley, an incredibly fertile sunny valley at an elevation of 1,000+ metres (3,300 ft), situated 40 km (25 miles) east of Beirut city bordering Syria.

Being a unique blend of Cabernet Sauvignon, Carignan and Cinsault, Musar has crafted a recipe that combines skeletal structure from the Cabernet, flesh on the bones from the Carignan and elegance and finesse from the Cinsault, always capable of ageing with grace for decades, and even longer in great years like 1999. Knowing that I have a case of the 1999 Underbond in storage, I was thrilled to find a lose bottle in my cellar during a recent rummage around.

Chateau Musar 1999, Bekaa Valley, Lebanon, 14% Abv.

Another legendary wine and also a legendary vintage from this Lebanese icon winery, Chateau Musar. Along with the 1991, 1995 and 2010 (from more recent vintages), this 1999 Musar has over performed for the past two decades. Still a deep ruby red colour with only a hint of garnet on the rim, this wine retains an aromatic opulence and mystical power so respected in great Musar vintages. Rich, expressive, detailed and exotic, the nose boasts complex notes of ripe pomegranate, Turkish delight, wild strawberries, red cherry, macerated red plums and Middle Eastern spices with just the most gentle, savoury, bloody, sweet polished mahogany wood spice nuance. The palate is incredibly vibrant and opulent with intense notes of savoury cured meats, macerated red and black berries, cherry liquor and exotic Christmas spices of cinamon and clove – my Persian restauranteur exclaimed after tasting it… “Jhavi”… or ‘strong’ in Persian… “it reminds me of my childhood when we made red wines in Iran high up in the mountains.” Two hours after opening, without decanting, this wine shows additional vibrancy, a savoury red and black fruit intensity and an admirable fine wine composure. A simply stunning expression of Musar that is certainly worth popping the cork and experiencing now if you have a few bottles in your cellar, but definitely no rush. This wine will be incredibly long lived! Drink now to 2045+.

(Wine Safari Score: 96/100 Greg Sherwood MW)

The Chateau Musar wines are imported and distributed in the UK by Musar UK and the current release 2018 retails for circa £55-£60 per bottle.

When it comes to adversity, there is little that has not been thrown at the people of Lebanon in the past few years. But as expected, resilience has once again become the byword for the tenacious locals in their struggle to resume normal lives after political turmoil, the Syrian refugee crisis, economic difficulties, the Covid pandemic and of course the disastrous Beirut port explosion on the 4th of August 2020. While all this chaos has been going on, the determined winemakers of the Bekaa Valley have soldiered on with their treasured alchemic art of turning grapes into incredibly fine wines.

After an almost 16 month wait, stocks of the highly anticipated 2015 Chateau Musar finally landed in the UK market at the end of 2021 defying ongoing shipping problems and global container shortages. True to the theme of adversity, the 2015 harvest proved to be one of the most challenging in a generation according to Chateau Musar. The start of the year was promising with January and February 2015 offering up plentiful amounts of rain and snow, followed in March by more snow before the weather gave way to warmer conditions in late March. But the optimism was short lived when in mid-April, exceptionally cold nigh time conditions returned with temperatures dropping to as low as -12 degrees C in one instance, damaging the already opening buds. By early May, the vineyards were filled with hectares of blackened vines suggesting a potentially catastrophic vintage ahead.

But miraculously, secondary green shoots emerged from the vines helped by higher temperatures in June and July. Clearly, yields were going to be greatly reduced for this harvest. The Syrah grapes were the first reds to be harvested on the 1st September with reduced yields of between 75% and 80% from the average while fortunately, the Cabernet Sauvignon seemed to be less affected when harvesting started on the 3rd of September. However during September, a heatwave struck the vineyards and while the Cabernet fruit avoided the worst of the frosts, the subsequent heatwave reduced yields by up to 65%. The Cinsault harvest started on the 8th of September with reduction in yields of between 40% and 70% depending on the vineyard location. The Carignan and Grenache were harvested on the 11th September with both varieties experiencing a reduction of 50% in yields before the final bunches of Mourvedre were harvested in early October. 2015 is certainly a year that will be remembered for its climatic difficulties but also hopefully for the final wine quality that reached the bottle.

Chateau Musar 2015, Bekaa Valley, 14% Abv.

Another seductive vintage of Musar with expressive aromatics of sweet red cherries, plum liquor, cinnamon spice, sweet cedar, cherry tobacco and balsamic reduction. The palate shows wonderful textural precision with polished sleek tannins, stewed cherries, hints of cola, pithy black currant and sweet sappy spice and a suave, super elegant finish that possesses an impressively pure, weightless intensity. This is a seriously classy Musar that has more in common with harmoniously elegant vintages like the 2010 than higher horsepower years like 1995 or 1999. Simply beautiful to drink now but exhibits a vibrant freshness that will keep this wine singing for many years to come. Drink now and over the next 20+ years.

(Wine Safari Score: 96+/100 Greg Sherwood MW)