2003 Chateau Musar

Community Tasting Notes (362) Avg Score: 91.3 points

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  4/14/2024 - johnrm Likes this wine: 91 Points

  Half bottle. Quite a deep colour for its age. I didn’t open this as early as I should have but it already showed rich, sweet, dark cherry and maraschino on the palate soon after decanting. With plenty of juicy acidity, it was still quite youthful. It drank well with roast duck.
  Part was retained for later and, 8h after opening, it had developed further, showing attractive fruit, spice, structure, balance, and length.
  We rated the full bottle tasted recently higher than this half bottle.

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  3/31/2024 - johnrm Likes this wine: 94 Points

  Deeper colour than the 1999 which we tasted side-by-side. Perfect cork - but I always use the 2-pronged ‘butler’s friend’ corkpull for old bottles of wine.
  Decanted carefully through a fine filter to remove the solid sediment (and the inevitable fine powdery sediment late in the decant - I filter the last few ml (with a few fine particles) into a separate glass for an early taste.
  Good as soon as opened but much better, as usual, after 6+ hours in the decanter. It showed all the soft, attractive sweet dark cherry fruit (with damson and figs later), spice, balance, structure, and length as in my previous notes. Perhaps a hint of chocolate later. It evolved continuously in the glass over time but seemed to be a little shorter than the ‘99. It is ageing beautifully.
  As with the 1999, we were pleased with this wine and just enjoyed it without micro-analysing the subtleties and complexity. An excellent bottle. It has years ahead.

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  3/30/2024 - dthrash111 wrote: 93 Points

  Drank after a 3.5 hour decant. The wine poured a deep ruby core, fading to garnet with a light brown rim.
  
  On the nose, the wine is developing with red fruit aromas of dried cranberry, ripe cherry, along with some blackberry. The nose has some earth and barnyard funk, tobacco, leather, and a hint of baking spices, along with some dustiness.
  
  On the palate, the wine is dry and the fruit set was more or less confirmed. The body was a medium plus concentration, and the finish was long and savory. The tannins are medium plus and mostly integrated. Lots of acid to keep everything balanced.
  
  Drinking perfectly now, but has another 10+ years of prime drinking ahead.

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  2/15/2024 - MarkRichards Likes this wine: 94 Points

  Just keeps getting better. One or more hour decant tonight
  Blind it would mistaken for a Bodeaux left bank second growth. Perhaps from Pauilliac as it has dark fruits followed by cedar and graphite, then black pepper, tar, hint of wintergreen.
  Sweet velvet tannins. Longer than a minute finish. Wow
  
  There is a reason the Romans felt the Bekka valley of Lebanon produced the best wines in the world. Musar in a year like 2003 could easily compete for the title.
  If great Bordeaux is your palate, this is your wine!

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  12/31/2023 - kkleg Likes this wine: 93 Points

  Classic aged Bordeaux nose. Really nice fruit on the palate, with a bit of cedar. Aging slowly, so there’s not a huge hurry. Very nice.

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