2017 Chateau Musar Bekaa Valley Lebanon 750 ml

Château Musar is one of the planet’s most celebrated and storied wines. It has graced the lists at The French Laundry, as well as Gramercy Tavern, Eleven Madison Park, and countless other world-famous restaurants.

This wine is truly unique. It combines the breadth and spice of a mature Châteauneuf-du-Pape, the rich fruit and structure of a Left Bank Bordeaux, and the aromatic lift of a Brunello. It demands a slow, measured experience, and in time reveals many expressions, along with an air of antiquity, thanks to its Fertile Crescent origins.

Very few wines define a nation like Musar, whose legend transcends the world of wine. The estate crafted exquisite wines throughout the 15-year civil war that ravaged the country, even when the conflict threatened the life of their legendary proprietor, the late Serge Hochar.   

The winery leapt onto the international scene in 1979, appraised by Christie’s wine director Michael Broadbent as the “find” of the Bristol Wine Fair. Their old vines of Cabernet Sauvignon, Cinsault, and Carignan benefit from 300 days of sunshine a year, cool nights, limestone soils, 4,000 feet of elevation, and, of course, their singular winemaking philosophy—the legacy of Hochar. Long before it was trendy, Hochar embraced a non-interventionist approach, and it’s apparent in Musar’s impossible-to-copy vivacity, energy, and earthiness.

These wines play a masterful game of hide and seek. They need time in the bottle or time in the decanter, often showing their full potential 2–3 days after opening. Musar is a true original, a wine for connoisseurs, a wine to cherish.