I don’t know what the “cuvee” is. The “rouge” should be the regular Musar red. Skip the Jeune. And sometimes you’ll see a bottling referred to as “Hochar” — while that one is “good,” it is not the Musar red that has been talked about in this thread. The Musar red should be in the $45 - $60 range for a current/recent vintage. The “Hochar” should be $23 - $30. The “Jeune” $18 - $25, but the is likely to always be identified as such, which makes knowing its usual pricepoint less valuable for the purpose of identifying the exact bottling on offer.
Kirk, it appeared to me that the Hochar was the top of the line red release and the one to go with. After reading Brian`s post, I not clear. Is the Hochar the one this thread is alluding to?
Brain, I appreciate your help in locating the best choice. Please enlighten me as to “Musar red” this thread is referring to. Ive been looking at the Wine Searcher Pro Version and only find the 3 that I mentioned. As I understand it, pass on the regular [rouge] and the Jeune, but whats left after the Hochar?
Follow the link provided by Andy. Unfortunately, Wine Searcher lists wines as they are listed/identified by retailers. This means some wines can be mislabeled (for example the “cuvee,” which is not the manner in which any Musar is rightfully identified).
No, the Hochar per et Fils is their mid-tier wine. You want the Gaston Hochar, which is most commonly only listed as “Musar Red”. It should be around $45-$65 depending on the vintage.
It is possible that you’ll still find some wine which is called Cuvee Musar. This was re-named Musar Jeune. We used to sell Musar Jeune as Cuvee Musar.
Gaston Hochar founded the winery in the 1930’s. Serge Hochar took over the winery in the 1950’s. Serge Hochar’s son is also called Gaston Hochar. By the way, it is pronounced Hoshar, not Hockar.
The top wine is called Chateau Musar but the name Gaston Hochar also appears on the label.
This should not be confused with the bottle which is called Hochar. Another wine which they make. It is fabulous too but not as expensive and not as famous as the Chateau Musar. Often, you’ll see Chateau Musar on wine lists for a price which is too good to be true, it is usually going to be Hochar.
Musar Jeune is a wine which is priced for everyday drinking, if you are in the $15 - $20 everyday range. These wines are lovely.
Andy’s previous post explains the line up of Musar wines but I just wanted to add this.
Considering how difficult it is for wine geeks to explain the labeling differences, it would appear Musar does themselves no favors with how they label/name their wines.
I`m including my response herein since there may be some on this thread who are interested.
Im of the opinion you know many more folks than I do in the LA/ OC area who would be interested in doing this so maybe we do some PMs with an idea as to how many people, what wine theme, the venue and on what date. Im thinking sometime in November otherwise for me it would be in January or later.
Actually IMO they are far easier to understand than just about any Burgundy or German wine. Once you see the labels it’s quiet clear how different they are and why I posted the link where there are pictures.
The biggest problem is with a few retailers and mainly, from my experiences, restaurants who list them improperly. They should know better.
I always thought it was ‘Hochar pere et fils’, with the latter bit helping to distinguish from the main wine with Gaston Hochar on the label. Has the label been simplified?
