2016 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—and 2016 is one of the more approachable wines they’ve ever made.

On the heels of a tough 2015, the iconic winery was blessed with plenty of rain in the winter and early spring, giving the vines plenty of reserve power to ripen grapes through a warm spring and summer. The warmth continued right up through harvest, the earliest ever at Musar, producing an immediate deliciousness that sets the wine apart from other vintages. 

“While some vintages can take a decade plus to show glimpses of what they are capable of, this 2016 seems to become more revealing with about 90 minutes in a decanter” our Master Sommelier Sur Lucero said, “although more time is preferred, as well as years in the bottle.”

Musar’s legend looms much larger than 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.