CHATEAU MUSAR - 1997

Lebanon in a bottle. Made by a legend. Serge Hochar continues to make dynamic wines with tremendous depth that are forever memorable. From the Bekaa Valley, where wine was born.

13.5% alcohol. Cabernet, Cinsault, Carignan.

TASTING NOTES:

Light, transparent ruby red. Barolo meets Pinot Noir with Bordeaux elegance and structure. The nose is evolved, immersed oak, cherry and cranberry. On the palate there is tobacco, fig, sour cherry, strawberry, raisin, earth, and endless other descriptors that gradually reveal themselves in the glass. Silky smooth. Pretty much as smooth as it gets.

SCORE & RECOMMENDATION:

96 PTS

There's wine. And there's wine. In a world full of big over oaked California Cabernets and bold Aussie reds exploding with saturation and sugar, it takes a wine like this to put them to shame. Seriously. If there's ever been a wine that encapsulates the word "authentic," this is it. This is the kind of wine that reminds me why I'm so passionate about wine. Craft and originality almost push the cork out of the bottle. Chateau Musar isn't trying to be anything but the best that it can be. The recommendation is to not drink Chateau Musar until 7 years after its vintage. Age definitely has a magical impact on this wine. It gets better and better. The same thing happens once you open the bottle. It keeps changing in the glass and revealing more of itself moment by moment.

Post Apocalypse, Desert Island, you can only bring one bottle...Chateau Musar will always enter into that discussion. It is that kind of wine.