TN: 1999 Chateau Musar (Lebanon, Bekaa Valley)

• 1999 Chateau Musar - Lebanon, Bekaa Valley (8/5/2019)
  Restaurant wine, decanted at table. Not much on the nose except old musty cellar. Better on the palete, but still lacking. Some dried red fruits and licorice notes but still mostly stale and musty. MEH.

Posted from CellarTracker

Sounds corked. Good bottles should be very aromatic. If nothing else, you oughta be able to smell the brett.

I just had this about 2 weeks ago. Nose was glorious. I personally think Musar bottles have variability, so buyer always beware, IMHO.

Musty? Check
Stale? Check
No VA? Maybe a counterfeit.

We had a very subtlety corked 1990 or 96 at Girl & The Goat last trip to Chicago. Somme recognized our disappointment but wasn’t sure either. We let it sit 15-20 minutes and between the three of us drank 1/3 or more of the bottle.

He eventually took the first bottle away and decanted a second in front of us. 180° experience, great Somme.

That’s clearly not a sound bottle. Too bad, it’s a very good wine, though still pretty young.

I’ve been lucky, I guess - everyone comments on the variability and high rate of flaws in Musar, but I’ve had many dozens of bottles, I think only two that were off (one moderately bretty 1998, one oxidized 1995 half bottle).

It’s alright. I got all the flawed Pegau bottles too until I stopped buying

Too bad. Had a beautiful bottle of this a few years back that had me wishing I had a case instead of the lone bottle.

That was clearly not a sound bottle. It sounds like cork taint. Even if you don’t like Musar, a note on a sound bottle would read very differently.

I do find bottle variation with Musar, but VERY few outright faulty bottles.

A moderately bretty Musar is considered off? What have you been smokin’?

But yeah, that sounded like a corked '99. Have had that wine multiple times and although there has been some bottle variation, that TN didn’t sound even remotely like what it should’ve been.

Here’s the thing that ‘sucks’ about this, though. I assume that Bob understands what a corked wine should smell like - and he didn’t mark it as ‘corked’. Could it have been? Sure . . . or it could have just been a bottle that did not perform as well as one would hope or expect.

As I’ve learned from so many on this board - there is no such thing as a great wine . . . only a great bottle.

Cheers!

I remember that bottle well. It was drinkable, but it had enough band-aid to it to be a distraction.

Maybe what I think of as “bretty” is different than you, or maybe my threshold for it is higher. I know it’s the de rigueur thing to remark about Musar, but almost every time I open a bottle, it’s beautiful.

Maybe I’m just lucky, maybe it’s something about me and my palate, I don’t know. I hope my roll keeps going.

It sure sounds like a flawed bottle. Musty notes are not typical of Musar, particularly such a young one (and yes, 20 year-old Musar is practically infanticide -although it should just be coming into a great drinking window with a healthy decant)

With that being said, I’m also not terribly keen on Musar as a restaurant wine, as even old Musar usually needs a pretty lengthy decant to really strut its stuff.

A sound bottle of the '99 Musar is a glorious experience, one of their great vintages.

Naw, just sounds like you’re in love!

This has got to be one of their best wines. I thought it was just coming into it’s own when I had it last. I’ve been trying like hell to keep my hands off my couple bottles but I can see one going down before the year is out.

Off bottle. Broadbent import??

The ones I have had have all been very pure Musar, distinct in flavour and nose and (too) fruit-aromatic. Need more years in the cellar