Chateau Musar Whites
2003 & 2009
Mix & Match to get the best price on 4 or more!
Offer Details & to Purchase: Chateau Musar - The Whites
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Grapes: 75% Obaideh, 25% Merwah
- Old vines 50-90 years of age
- Fermented in French oak barriques (from the forest of Nevers) for 9 months
- Not co-fermented, the separate Obaideh and Merwah wines are blended before bottling
- Bottled and blended at the end of its first year
- Aged in the cellar, the finished wines are released a full seven years after the harvest
While Lebanon is the REALLY old world, the wines emulate the best aspects of old school and traditional Bordeaux, with a singularity that is alone what makes Chateau Musar so unique in the wine world.
What is the wine like?
In their youth: yellow-gold, subtly oaky, and creamy-textured, rich yet dry and intensely citrusy, with honeyed nuances. Wholly unique, the style has been described as resembling ‘dry Sauternes’ or mature white Graves. Chateau Musar Whites develop tawny hues and mellow spicy characters as they age. The cellars at Ghazir holds bottles of this wine dating as far back as 1954.
And the grapes…?
The grapes for the Musar white are a blend of two ancient grape varieties, Obaideh and Merwah, indigenous to the mountains of Lebanon and both from 50-90 year old vines. But fret not, for fear of the unknown, they are thought to be related to Chasselas, Chardonnay, and Semillon.
The Obaideh vineyards are in the foothills of the Anti-Lebanon mountains on stony, chalky soils, while the Merwah vines are on the seaward side of Mount Lebanon, on calcareous (limestone) gravelly soils. Yields are very low for these untrained bushvines: 10 – 20 hl per hectare. At an astonishing altitude of 4,600 feet, they are still on their own roots, among very few vineyards in the world ‘pie franco’.
Winemaking
Chateau Musar White is fermented in French oak barriques for 9 months, bottled and blended at the end of its first year and released seven years after the harvest.
If you have had Musar before, you know what I mean. If you have only had the RED and not the white (or the ROSE - spring 2019 kids!), what are you waiting for?