TN: Chateau Musar 1999 Bekaa Valley, Lebanon

Just shy of 20 years, this is screaming good. Reminiscent of an old school 1er Cru Gevrey from a slightly funky cellar. Yes, there is brett, but it’s within my tolerance range (for calibration purposes, Pegau falls outside of it). FWIW, a little signs of seepage at the cork, and a slightly low fill, so this may be slightly ahead of a perfect bottle.

Mature, well-integrated red wine aromas. Confit cherry and strawberry aromatics, with a hint of leather and earth. A lovely wine to just nose from the glass. A hypothetical mix of Burgundy and Languedoc aromatics.

The wine’s components are well-integrated. This is at the stage where there’s still lovely primary fruit flavors and acidity at the core, but at the edges the secondary flavors of maturity are hovering. The earth and funk kick in a bit on the finish.

Released late by the winery, this is shining tonight, and did well with some whole wheat pasta with pancetta, beans and kale. I wish I had more of this.

Nice!

Love back vintages if Musar.

Thanks for sharing the notes…I’m sitting on a magnum of this vintage.

This is such a great vintage of Musar…do yourself a favor, if you liked this try to track down a ‘93. They’re so similar in style, but the 93 is a bit “more Musar” to me.

Thanks Kirk. I’ll check with Broadbent. I most recently had access to 99, 02, 04 and 08 and they were all lovely. That mag ought to be stunning soon-ish.

I had two and drank one when Serge died in 2014 and decided to wait until the second one was 20 years old. One more year to wait. Sounds like it will be worth the wait.

That was a sad day in the wine world.

It will definitely be worth the wait.

Glad so see in my cellar I have one of these- but only one unfortunately.

Do you think it’s in its early drinking window, or towards the end? I have tasted a few 1980s vintages which were still great, and I had a good bottle of the '74 recently, but I don’t know much about the longevity of Lebanese wines and how they vary from vintage to vintage.

Olivier,

I would say this is early prime. As noted, there’s still plenty of fruit. I didn’t get anything remotely oxidative in the aromatics or flavors, and the wine shows plenty of good color in the glass and still has some intensity from acidity. I cracked this bottle because it showed a little seepage under the foil, and a slightly low fill, and it was quite fine. If your bottle is still in the neck (mine was just below), it will likely show even better, and I would expect this continue drinking well for at least a decade hence.

Had the ‘99 earlier this Summer. It really is a special wine and in a great drinking window. Pull that cork if you have one!!

Based on Jim’s original note above, and the heaps of praise others have piled on the wine, what the hell are you waiting for??

The '99 is a super vintage of Musar, and along with the '91 comprises the best of the 90s vintages I’ve had (91,93, 95, 99).

As for longevity, you have nothing to worry about. I can’t speak to Lebanese wine in general but Musars are notoriously long-lived. You pretty much treat them like Barolo in terms of aging and decant. In other words, let them age - a lot - and give them a good long decant. At nineteen years of age I still consider drinking the 99s to be somewhat of an infanticide, but it sounds like it’s giving a lot of pleasure at this point. I usually like Musars with something like 25-30 years of age.

So Oliver, you have nothing to worry about. Drink it now, drink it later, you’ll do fine either way.

The '72 was one of the very greatest wines I’ve ever had in my life, drank around 2007 or so if I recall correctly. I also had the 77. 79. 80 and 81 at 25+ years, with no signs of being over the hill.

Thanks all. I didn’t pull the trigger on the 1999 due to the price but will do so now. Luckily there are still a few in stock.

Jim – I am a longstanding Musarophile – more Musar than anything else in my cellar – and your notes were great. Burgundy and Languedoc is spot-on, and I would add the occasional traditional rioja.

I have long felt Musar has greater bottle variation than vintage variation. As a general rule, I would say less than 15 years old is infanticide. That said, I love the 99, 95, 93, 90; and 86 is at another level right now.

FYI: Flickingers has some older Musar “on sale” (still not cheap) today, with the potential for better pricing at 12 CT.

I had one bottle of 1974 or 75 that I bought when Frank Prial wrote about it in the Times back then. I saved it until the mid 1990s and it was fantastic. For some reason, maybe the label fell off, I did not know the exact vintage. I emailed Serge about how good it was and he told me what the vintage was because they did not import into the U S every year. I never met him in person but every time there was major. fighting in the Bekaa valley, I would send him a message to keep his head down. He seemed like a nice guy.

Appreciate the notes Jim. I was just gifted the 93` so I look forward to a comparison although this bottle has a high fill and no signs of seepage.

Old Musar is great, though my experience is limited to 90’s bottles largely. The 99 is basically my favorite. Drinks to me a bit more like old CdP before they got heavy and Parkerized.

I feel like there is more earthiness in them. Maybe psychological. I know it’s silly, but I always think that if someone could make an Argentinian Malbec that I liked, it would taste like Musar.

thanks for the note, glad to have 5 in the cellar

Only have one of these left. They were so good young…

This vintage has been excellent from release to today.