Chateau Musar, 2018 Red Wine
Bekaar Valley, Gaston Hochar
New Release
Bottle size: 75cl
ABV: 14%
Price:
$57.92 USD
Description
The Chateau Musar 2018 Red Wine is a great vintage with a blend of power, complexity and endless fruit. On the palate, this wine is full of ripe, black cherries and balanced, rich fruits and spices. This wine is perfectly harmonious and balanced and expresses the power of wines from this famous producer in the finest way. The 2018 Musar is a blend of Cinsault, Cabernet Sauvignon, Grenache and Carignan from this well-known and highly regarded Lebanese winery.
2018 Tasting Notes
The 2018 vintage has a deep garnet colour in the glass with dried cherries and mature red fruits on the nose. The palate is rich and concentrated with cranberries, raisins, and dates; there is good acidity with fine tannins. It has an enticing smoky, dusty fruit with soft liquorice undertones and at 6 years of age upon release, it is already developed and mature.
Chateau Musar is often referred to as the Lafite of the Lebanon. Wine maker Gaston Hochar defied the odds producing a string of great wines during the Lebanon War. Musar has assumed legendary status. Complex, long-lived and endlessly varied, in some vintages it seems more like a Burgundy, in others a Bordeaux, in still others a Hermitage. But it is always brilliantly, uniquely, Lebanese. Ages magnificently but good vintages are usually best at 10-20 years old.
2018 began with an impressive 355mm of rain and snow in January, while February was also abundant with 162mm of rain to irrigate the soils. March followed with 41mm and April, with 27mm, was the icing on the cake; after the 15th of April, a surprise increase in temperature encouraged the vines to open. May & June were exceptional as 52mm and 32mm of rain fell during the blooming period, the vines loved the additional water and the harvest certainly looked promising. July was true to form with no water and temperatures increased to an average of 35 degrees Celsius. Then in August we had a 3-day heatwave with temperatures of 39 and 40 degrees.
Cinsault was harvested on the 4th of September and what a surprise...the grapes were dried with high sugar content. This is the first time we have experienced this from our Cinsault vineyards and showed us that nothing can be taken for granted; no grape can escape changing climatic conditions, each year is different and unique.
Condition
New release