A Middle Eastern Delight - Chateau Musar

I had another boutique New Zealand winery for this post, which will now be my next post, but I had the opportunity to taste the 2001 Chateau Musar, which was just absolutely stunning and had to get it on here.

Chateau Musar are based in the Bekaa Valley in the Lebanon, the first vines were planted in 1930 by Gaston Hocheron on his return from a trip to Bordeaux. In 1959 Gaston's son Serge became winemaker after completing his winemaking studies at the University of Oenology in Bordeaux. Throughout the conflict that ravaged the region, they only failed to produce a vintage only a hand full of times, which when you consider it is pretty amazing.

Chateau Musar Red is a blend of Cabernet Sauvignon, Cinsault and Carignan from vineyard sites near the villages of Aana and Kefraya, the vines are an average age of 40 years old with low yields and planted in gravelly soil over limestone. Each individual component is fermented separately in concrete vats, then after 6 months they are transferred in French oak for a further year. They are then blended together to create the iconic taste that is Musar and placed for another 12 months in the concrete vats, when it is then bottled. After bottling it is then paced in there cellars for a further 4 maturation before they release it for sale, so by the time it hits our shelves it's already seven years old!

The 2001 had this lovely, mature brick red colour in the glass, with wonderfully pronounced aromas of dark fruit, leather, spice and cigar box. On the palate the fruit came over as much more mature, with figs and prunes, then all that lovely spice and cigar box combined together beautifully, there was a little touch of acidity and soft silky tannins. I've tasted quite a few vintages over the years even going back to one from the 60's, but this has to be one of my favourite vintages, Musar is definitely a wine that I would recommend, but make sure it's nice and mature, as it gets so much better with age.

London International Wine Fair 2010

This week saw the wine world descend on London for the biggest trade show of the year, the London International Wine Fair. As usual producers from all over the world came to show off the latest releases from their cellars, along with packaging manufacturers and distribution companies. The biggest difference this year was the size of the show, which was remarkably smaller than in previous years, an obvious effect of the global recession. The biggest omission from this years show had to be Constellation, who own brands such as Ravenswood, Mondavi, Inniskillen and Nobilo. Notably, many of the smaller producers shared stand space, instead of spending money to have their own.

We started the day by sampling five fantastic wines, from what must have been the smallest producer there, Terre Di San Rocco. It only produces 40,000 bottles a year, but wow it was good – so watch out for a post on those. Next, we stopped to listen to Adolfo Hurtado the chief wine maker from Cono Sur in Chile, talk about its organic wines. The guys from Brown Brothers, who produce some fantastic, if not a little off beat wines, were also there, showing off its full range. This included its lusciously sweet Patricia Noble Riesling. It had amazing flavours of stone fruit, honey, marmalade and citrus; all balanced with a mouth watering acidity. This is definitely one I’ll be adding to my wine rack!

The highlight of the day, for me, was meeting Ronald Hocher from Chateau Musar in the Lebanon. We spent some time discussing how foolish we thought a leading supermarket had been for delisting his, and many other wines. We also went through a selection of vintages of its Chateaux Musar White and Red, with Ronald revealing that they have vintages going back over 50 years for both wines, which is just amazing.

All in all, it was a fantastic day. It’s great fun getting to see what wines were coming through in the next few months, and meeting some great wine makers! I’ve already booked it in my diary for next year!