2013 Château Musar, Rouge, Bekaa Valley, Lebanon.
The 2013 Château Musar red is a beautiful vintage of classic Musar with its own personality, rustic charm and depth, showing off mature dusty red currant, plum, briar laced raspberry and tart blueberry fruits in the glass with a heady mix of spices, dried flowers, a touch leather, grilled fennel, cedar, earthy black olive and tobacco leaf notes. Musar wines are always quite distinctive and this dark opaque garnet hued 2013 is evolving well, shedding its robust chewy tannins and filling out out with a good mix of ripe fruit density, body and crunchy savory tones, but it needs food to show off its best qualities. This wine brings back good memories of meeting the iconic Serge Hochar and his larger than life style and his special presence, you couldn’t help be inspired by what he did for wine, not just his own from Lebanon. He once told me not to chill his white, a blend of ancient grape varieties Obaideh and Merwah, maybe related to Semillon, and serve it after his reds, saying it was the star of the show, especially on the day we had it, even if the customers came for his red. The Musar Rouge is a blend of Cabernet Sauvignon, Carignan and Cinsault from vineyards near the Bekaa Valley in the villages of Aana and Kefraya on gravelly soils over limestone. The cool fermentations are very long and done in cement vats, lasting 6 months before being moved to French oak barrels where the wine matured for 12 months. The Musar wines are all organic and vegan, with the red seeing low sulfur and bottled unfined and unfiltered. After 48 months of bottle maturation, the winery notes, resting in the cold deep stone cellars of Chateau Musar, the wines are released a full seven years after the harvest.
Château Musar, which dates back to 1930, but became a worldwide legend under the late Serge Hochar after he took over the winery in 1959, and more recently under Gaston, Serge’s son, was the first producer in Lebanon to achieve organic certification for its own vineyards in 2006. Musar, based in Ghazir has vineyards that are mostly are located in the Bekaa Valley, as they say are cradled between two mountain ranges running parallel to Lebanon’s Mediterranean coastline. Musar adds that vines have been cultivated here for at least 6,000 years and the Phoenicians the seafaring ancestors of the modern Lebanese people were instrumental in bringing vines and wines from Byblos to areas far and wide around the Mediterranean. The terroir is very intriguing here, with good elevation and cooling effects of the snow-covered mountains 3,000 feet above sea level, the Bekaa Valley sees about 300 days of sunshine a year, along with hot Summers make for ripe and balanced wines. The Hochar’s have always said that their remote and unspoilt vineyards were ‘organic’ by default before the term was even coined and they’ve always respected the environment and faiths of all the native peoples here, earning the trust and respect of everyone here in this tragically challenging part of the world. I remember hearing with awe that Musar hires Christians, Jews and Muslims without prejudice and has never missed a harvest, even with all the wars and having tanks racing through the vineyards! This Musar Rouge, roughly equal parts of Cabernet Sauvignon, Carignan and Cinsault, should be on every wine lovers bucket list, it is not the greatest wine in the world, but certainly fascinating and historic enough to bring joy to a meal with friends and to celebrate peace in this world. The flagship Musar offering include this Red, along with a Rosé and the mentioned white, which I also highly recommend.
($79 Est.) 94 Points, grapelive