Shanghai Room, Langham Place Hotel, Mongkok, Kowloon, Hong Kong
Tasted Friday, June 1, 2012 by Goldstone with 1,415 views
A group from the Hong Kong Wine Society contributed two bottles of each of a huge array of different vintages of Ch. Musar going back to 1966. Our special guests were the ever-wonderful Serge Hochar and his son Marc, who were in town for the Asia Wine Expo. The Langham Place Hotel did an extremely good job managing the wines and the serving (I think we must have got through around 500 wine glasses between 30 of us) and the dinner presented by Ming Court, the hotel's Michelin two-star Cantonese restaurant was fabulous.
Serge was visibly moved by the occasion.... it was pretty special.... although he is a regular visitor to Hong Kong, he had no idea of the depth of appreciation of his wines that exists here.
The key conclusion here was how the ever-changing character of an older vintage of Ch. Musar as it sits in the glass makes it terribly difficult to arrive at a set ranking: we each had an inverted V of 12 glasses in front of us rather like organ stops and the trouble was that nearly each time you pushed the same organ stop it produced a different note! The other point of note was how narrow a spectrum of colour covered 5 decades of wines....it was really tricky even to guess the decade in most cases.
This dish was absolutely stupendous and definitely two Michelin stars. Actually I found that it paired better with the extra weight of the 1994 Blanc.
Another heavenly dish: simple and just perfectly executed. Personally I found that it paired better with the lighter 1992 Blanc.
Wow....three great dishes in a row, especially the salad of preserved ginger and shredded cucumber. This was a great pairing with the wine.
I think I was meant to drink the 2000 with this but I decided to reverse the order of the three reds. Actually, this was a very light dish and suited the Musar Blanc better, especially the 1992.
Hmm, for me the only dud dish of the night and definitely not wine-friendly.
The great thing here was that neither the Wagyu nor the Black Truffle was overdone so it still had a classic fried rice touch to it and reallly balanced well with the younger wines, but even better with the 1997 and 1999.
I was very taken with the Rose.....and even more by Serge's story of its genesis.
We finished with a glass of L'Arak De Musar, which, with typical Serge Hochar aplomb is apparently actually a Cognac with just a few anis seeds added during the 4th distillation. Despite its 57% alcohol it is really quite elegant but not for the faint-hearted.
We should also thank FICO, Ch. Musar's long-standing sole distrubutor in Hong Kong, who helped fill in with some additional wines.
1980 Chateau Musar 92 Points
Lebanon, Bekaa Valley
Tasted blind as one of 12 vintages over 5 decades. Small serving. Transparent, light bricking amber colour. Nose is petrolly, nail varnish.....very Musar-ish. Palate is light acetone, white mushroom and black Chinese mushroom, light mouthfeel....Burgundian....lots of iron filings metallic element but not unpleasant....finishing with a very light, perfumed yet powerful resonance. What a great way to start the line-up. My #5, group's #8.
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1993 Chateau Musar 94 Points
Lebanon, Bekaa Valley
Tasted blind as one of 12 vintages over 5 decades. Small serving. Transparent, bright-jeweled ruby colour. Nose is black and red cherries with that classic Musar eastern perfumed note. Palate is richer than the 1980 and just immediately gorgeous...quite high acidity....temple smoke and sun-warmed cedar shingles....a bit of tomato....a touch of black and bitter Chinese medicine... quietly resonant at the low end of the piano note scale. This proved one of the least volatile wines of the evening......it quickly planted its stake in the ground as #2 for me (group's #9) and maintained it whilst others waxed and waned (.....and waxed again, in some cases) around it...er, except for the superior 1991.
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1994 Chateau Musar 90 Points
Lebanon, Bekaa Valley
Tasted blind as one of 12 vintages over 5 decades. Small serving. Transparent, much younger purple-red colour than the preceding wines (which turned out to be the 1993). Nose is high-toned, acetone, quite closed....but good! Palate is very cherried fruit and exotic spice market....richer....longer than the preceding wines but rather candied and needs a lot more time. As Serge observed, this is a backward vintage because it was an unusually hot year. Probably amplified at this tasting as it was the one vintage served in Magnum. My #8, group's #5.
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1995 Chateau Musar 93 Points
Lebanon, Bekaa Valley
Tasted blind as one of 12 vintages over 5 decades. Small serving. Transparent, bright, jeweled but quite young-looking purple-ruby colour. Nose is spirited, alcoholic and seems very young, with very little brett. Palate is....oh gosh, lovely and much more open than the nose suggests.....all the classic Musar elements of cedar forests and old incense-infused chapels but with bright cherry fruit and kirsch....rich, deep and much more mature than its 1994 sibling. At some point it shrugged its shoulders and stood up to another level....perfect for drinking now but will only get better over the next 15 years. Serge observed that they held this back so long that they ended up releasing the 1996 before it. So it is built for the long term. My #4, group's #2.
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1969 Chateau Musar
Lebanon, Bekaa Valley
Tasted blind as one of 12 vintages over 5 decades. Small serving. Transparent, distinct bricking edges and a more pronounced amber colour....a really beautiful colour. Nose is older, barnyard, , some horse sweat, patchouli oil, classic Musar incense, damp socks...all somewhat austere if that isn't contradictary. Palate is great acidic attack, and gorgeous....rubber tyres....very light mouthfeel....Burgundian....some iron filings....finishing with a very light, perfumed resonance. Unfortunately, it was a fleeting pleasure....it dropped off a cliff very quickly. My #12, group's #8 (but with two #1s). It would be unfair to score this wine without caressing an entire bottle.
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1966 Chateau Musar 95 Points
Lebanon, Bekaa Valley
Tasted blind as one of 12 vintages over 5 decades. Small serving. Very bright-jeweled, transparent ruby colour with no hint of amber......looks young compared to most of the wines. Nose is a drop dead gorgeous.... perfumed and with whisps of opium smoke....this has a resonance even on the nose, which is the mark of a very special wine. Palate is very light mouthfeel and a ferrous element up front but then it segues into liquorice pods and a dilute form of black Chinese medicine ....sweet fruit......a brilliantly dry brick dust powdery tannin finish. This stayed incredibly powerful with even a spoonful's-worth with extended time in the glass. My #5 as officially recorded but was really #3= with the 1978 and the 1995, group's #8 (but with three #1s).
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1991 Chateau Musar 96 Points
Lebanon, Bekaa Valley
Tasted blind as one of 12 vintages over 5 decades. Small serving. Dusky semi-transparent ruby colour but with a still younger purple-ruby hue at the core. Nose is gosh, lovely high-toned rosewater light perfume with a firmer spine of prune stones in the background. Palate is WOW!....light in mouthfeel but with enormous power....huge depth of complex red/black fruits, temple smoke, a myriad of dry Eastern spices, orange brick-dust powdered tannin finish and a mounting, near-endless resonance inside the head on the finale. Absolutaly thrilling. My #1 and the group's #1, apparently by an historic margin of consensus for HKWS tastings.
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2002 Chateau Musar 87 Points
Lebanon, Bekaa Valley
Tasted blind as one of 12 vintages over 5 decades. Small serving. By far the darkest in colour....a semi-transparent purple-red. Nose is very young, closed and still oak-dominated with just a touch of black peppercorn. Palate is very, very sweet fruit and Turkish Delight...it tastes just about integrated but craves a good few more years in the bottle to unfurl. As Serge observed, it isn't really yet ready for drinking. His rule is "keep until 15 years old" and this is good evidence. My #9, group's #4.
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1978 Chateau Musar 93 Points
Lebanon, Bekaa Valley
Tasted blind as one of 12 vintages over 5 decades. Small serving. Amazing bright-jeweled transparent ruby colour....it must be a 1990s. Nose is reticent......you really have to chase it down corridors to get a whiff of the classic musar elements. Palate is absolutely classic Musar.......complex fruits, tons of exotic dry spices in an Eastern market, broodingly thunderous power rumbling in the background, gorgeous dusky powdered tannins like the dust from old bricks. Lovely! The 1978 is always a consistent pleasure....too bad it was only a small tasting....this one of the wines that would have shown better as a bottle drank on its own over a long evening. My #3, group's #3.
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1979 Chateau Musar 93 Points
Lebanon, Bekaa Valley
Tasted blind as one of 12 vintages over 5 decades. Small serving. Totally transparent but still very bright and fresh-looking ruby/amber colour. Nose is light and restrained. Palate is light rosewater and liquorice pod...somewhat dilute......but then a huge surge of powerful resonance completely blows you away....just like a very old top quality Rioja. Very complex indeed but not at all showy.....Serge observed that this is probably the year above all in his career when he "played safe" and probably didn't allow the wine the chance to shine enough. My #11 but I don't quite know why I didn't rank it considerably higher (perhaps because it was late in the line-up and I was rushing). group's #12 (but with three #1s). One of the few vintages I don't own.
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1981 Chateau Musar 92 Points
Lebanon, Bekaa Valley
Tasted blind as one of 12 vintages over 5 decades. Small serving. Darker (one of the darkest) transparent cherry red colour. Nose is restrained, bass-toned and furled like a flag that hasn't opened. Palate is light like the 1979 yet way more complex: it has gorgeous pinpoint acidity, super powdered brick-dust resolved tannins...gorgeous and perfumed...talcum powder.....with enormous resonance inside the head on the finish. I can't understand on reflection why I had this as my #5 and not higher, but is was also the group's #10. I think it's another wine where you need to embrace a bottle on its own for an evening.
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1989 Chateau Musar 90 Points
Lebanon, Bekaa Valley
Tasted blind as one of 12 vintages over 5 decades. Small serving. Looks by far the oldest wine judging from its light transparent amber colour. Nose is very mature and powdered but past its prime, like a film star in her 70s who would still have been a show-stopper in her 50s. Palate is very sharp, cherry-flavoured boiled sweets that used to take the roof off your mouth as a schoolkid. Finish is all an elegant 70-year old lady's talcum-powdered elegance. A faded beauty. My #6, group's #6......but, aha, revealed afterwards to have been the only wine served from 375ml bottles, hence more aged.
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