Chateau Musar 2008
Drinking beautifully now, but will last for decades
This tasting note may be read alongside my wine stories piece on Chateau Musar.
Country of Origin: Lebanon
Grapes: Cabernet Sauvignon, Carignan and Cinsaut, in roughly equal parts.
Flavours: blueberries, black cherry, black plum, raspberries and redcurrant, jam, leather, tobacco, vanilla and smoke.
Tannins: Fine, smooth, barely noticeable, but doing their work perfectly.
Alcohol: 14% but you’d never know it, it’s so well integrated.
Comparison wines: Chateau Musar is unique, it often varies from vintage to vintage, and can develop noticeably with age. No single grape tends to dominate, but it does sometimes remind me of an aged Côte Rôtie or a fine Pinotage. If you like either of these, you’ll like this wine.
Food: Chateau Musar doesn’t need food. There is so much to it, your palate can do without the distractions. That said, it goes perfectly with any game, especially a classic game pie; also a lamb tagine, and many other middle-eastern specialities. It makes a very good special occasion wine, and is tough enough to survive the most trimmings-bedecked Christmas turkey.
Where to Buy: In Britain, at the time of writing, Lay & Wheeler, Sandhams and Seckford Wines all have the 2008 in stock. For other countries, check on wine-searcher.com here.
Value for Money: At around £54.00 a bottle it is not a cheap wine. But it’s competitively priced compared with similar-quality reds from Bordeaux or the Rhone Valley.
Miscellany: one consequence of the minimal-intervention approach to wine making employed at Chateau Musar is that their wines are prone to Brett taint. This is considered by some to be a wine fault - though not, thankfully, by the Hochar family. It arises when a fungus, Brettanomyces, grows in the wine. It’s only there in tiny quantities: you can’t see it or feel it on your tongue, but you can sometimes taste or smell its presence, if you know what to look for.
With Chateau Musar, it helps account for vintage variation, and when present makes for a more interesting and complete wine. We humans vary in our tolerance of brett: some of us find it pleasant in small quantities, others repugnant, which goes some way to explaining why some people don’t like Chateau Musar. The only reliable way to kill it is to add more sulphur during the wine making process. But excess sulphur can change the flavour profile in other, less desirable ways, resulting in wines that taste unusually pure and clean but otherwise lack character. My level of brett tolerance is quite high, which is why, no doubt, I shall continue enjoying Chateau Musar for years to come.