Wine | Postcards From Here and There

Chateau Musar Tasting

Chateau Musar is perhaps the best known of the Lebanese wine producers. Founded in 1930 by Gaston Hochar it was under the stewardship of his son Serge that the wines gained an international reputation.

Vineyards are located in the fertile Bekaa Valley and harvested grapes are then transported by lorry to the winery which is located in Ghazir which is about 25Km from the city of Beirut. The red wine is a blend of three varieties, Cabernet Sauvignon, Carignan and Cinsault, usually in equal proportions. All fruit is handpicked and fermentation takes place in cement vats using wild yeasts. Once fermentation is complete the wine is placed in French oak barrels for 12 months followed by a further period in the vats. Wines are blended and bottled, without fining or filtration, after three years but are then retained in the winery for at least four more years before release onto the market. This means that Chateau Musar is at least seven years old when it appears on the shelves.

Chateau Musar Red

Chateau Musar 2003 – garnet in colour which fades to tawny at the rim. Aromas of cherry, red fruits and spice. The palate has a touch of sweetness, it is light with red fruits, dried herbs, peppery spice, chocolate and a nice savoury sweetness. The finish is long and peppery. Very approachable and drinking very well.

Chateau Musar 2002 – garnet in colour, slightly deeper and dusky in appearance. Nose not as approachable as 2003, quite closed. Lots of red fruits and bags of peppery spice with some cola and a finish of medicinal cherry.

Chateau Musar 2001 – Similar in appearance to 2003. Blaqckfruits, cherry, farmy and dried mushroom. The palate is medium bodied, cherry, raspberry, cola and peppery spice but all is quite restrained. Tannins are dry.

Chateau Musar 2000 – mid garnet with a tawny rim. The nose is subtle and complex mix of dried fruits, cherry, tobacco and spice. The palate is rich, full bodied dark fruit with lovely balance. A savoury/meaty finish that lingers.

Chateau Musar 1999 – garnet/tawny in appearance. Nose is savoury, meaty, farmy, smokey with dark cherry. Palate has lots of dark cherry, spice, peppery fruit with touch of violets. The finish is long and lingering. A wine of depth and complexity that continues to develop in the glass.

Chateau Musar 1998 – light garnet with tawny rim. The nose is lighter but still has real character with cherry and savoury spice. Palate is light and the fruit is drying a little but this has real elegance.

Chateau Musar 1996 – Tawny, clear and bright. Nose is not very expressive. Palate is light and full of mature fruit flavours, cherry, fig, raisins, coffee. Dry but with real character.

Chateau Musar White

The white wine is a blend of two indigenous Lebanese grape varieties, Obaideh and Merwah. The vineyards are old planted between 50 and 90 years ago. Obaideh is a variety which is high in sugar and low in acidity and believed to be related to Chardonnay. Merwah is a variety thought to be related to Semillon which can produce distinctive wines but may lack in acidity at times. The two varieties blended together produce a distinctive and age worthy wine.

At Musar they are fermented and partly aged in oak barrels before finishing off in stainless steel. Blending is usually in the proportion 2/3 Obaideh to 1/3 Merwah.

Chateau Musar 2009 – yellow/gold in appearance, clear and bright. The nose is a little closed but there is lemon citrus, tropical fruits and a touch of nuttiness. The palate has a silky, creamy texture and wonderful balance. Tropical fruits abound, banana, pineapple together with honey and marzipan. The finish is as wonderful as it is long.

Chateau Musar 1992 – golden in appearance with great intensity. Nose is closed and not very expressive at all. The palate is dry and sherry like with a slight buttery texture. Improves in glass to give some stone fruits and a touch of honey.

Chateau Musar 1991 – Deep gold in appearance. The nose is subtle with smokey honeycomb. The palate is pineapple, peach, apricot, marzipan and is complex. As it opens out there are flavours of lemon and quince emerging. There is a dryness and a lingering lemon/honeycomb finish.

Chateau Guiraud Visit

There has been a wine growing estate here for over three hundred years but it hasn’t always been called Guiraud. In the 1855 classification of the wines of Bordeaux it was called Chateau Blaye, however the name was changed shortly after.

Chateau Guiraud is unusual in Sauternes in so far as it has a black label and this is said to date from the death of Napoleon I in 1821. Today the black label has made Guiraud instantly recognisable on a wine merchants shelf.

The estate was purchased in 1981 by businessman Frank Narby and Xavier Planty was appointed to manage the property. It is here that a series of improvements began which included renovation of the vineyards and the planting of trees to increase biodiversity. The use of pesticides was stopped in 2004. In 2006 the property was sold to a partnership of Robert Peugeot, Olivier Bernard, Stephan Von Neipperg and Xavier Planty. Further modernisation followed including the cellars and the vineyard management moved increasingly to organic practices. This resulted in organic certification being achieved in 2010 with the first vintage the following year. A restaurant, La Chapelle de Guiraud, opened on the property earlier this year.

Planting at the property is 65% Semillon and 35% Sauvignon Blanc. Red grape vines were once grown and a dry red produced but these vines were removed following the current owners purchase of the property in 2006.

Harvesting at Guiraud can involve up to 200 pickers and as many as seven passes through the vineyards to harvest berries at the optimum level botrytis. Pressing is done using a balloon press and is very gentle, taking four hours. Pressed juice is held at 4 Celsius for 24 hours to settle before being put into French oak barrels for a two week ferment using wild yeasts. Barrels are sourced from five different coopers and a very light toasting is used. Batonnage to mix in the lees is used to extract more aroma during the three months following fermentation.

Ageing of the wine takes place in French oak, the proportion of new oak depending on the wine. It is usually 100% new for between 18 and 24 months depending on the vintage for the grand vin. Any dry white wine made is usually aged for between nine and twelve months in stainless steel.

Le G de Chateau Guiraud. Bordeaux. 2014. Pale lime green in appearance with wonderful aromas of lime, lemon and stone fruits. The palate is dry, fresh with lovely citrus and a touch of honey and apricot. A nice texture and very drinkable. Very nice indeed.

Petit Guiraud. Sauternes. 2014. The aroma here is delightful and enchanting, citrus, orange, apricot and some tropical fruit. The balance has lovely balance with fresh acidity as a counterfoil to the rich fruit. A nice finish. Very nice.

Chateau Guiraud. Sauternes. 2015. Yellow/gold in appearance. the nose is complex mix of tropical fruit, honey, nut and pineapple. Palate has lovely freshness and balance with tropical fruits, apricot, almond and a touch of honey. A long lingering finish. Excellent.

A Day in Sauternes

Sauternes is located about an hours drive south of the great wine city of Bordeaux and makes for a good day trip if you are visiting the region. The wine growing region is made up of five communes; Sauternes, Barsac, Bommes, Fargues and Preignac. Growers in Barsac have the choice of labelling their wines as either Sauternes or Barsac. It is a region that doesn’t get a lot of tourists. The village of Sauternes is one of those sleepy French villages where time seems to pass at a gentle pace. There are couple of restaurants but not much else for the passing tourist and this adds to its charm. It is nothing like the wine town of Saint Emilion, with thousands of visitors each day, though both are surrounded by vines. It is quiet and tranquil and well worth a stop on a visit to the area.

Although relatively close to the great vineyards of the Médoc the wines here couldn’t be more different. Sauternes is the home of sweet white wine. The grapes grown here are Semillon, Sauvignon Blanc and, to a lesser extent, Muscadelle.

Early autumn vines post harvest at Chateau Guiraud

The area is close to the Garonne and Céron rivers and this is key to the development of the noble rot fungus (Botrytis cinerea). The Céron is a cold water river and The Garonne is a warm water river. Where they meet fog/mist forms in the morning where it sits over the vineyards until the sun burns it away to leave warm afternoons. This creates the humidity that the noble rot requires. The fungus enters the vine at flowering but doesn’t develop until the mists of and fogs of late summer, early autumn. If the conditions are right then fungus grows and dehydrates the grape berries, concentrating the sugar inside them.

Its a risky business making Sauternes. In some years the fungus doesn’t develop properly, the grapes do not shrivel and concentrate sugar, in such a case only a dry white wine can be made. The harvest is late, growers need to wait to get maximum concentration in the grapes, leaving them at the risk to autumn rains. Only the most rotten grapes are selected and this means that pickers have to pass through the vineyards several times. As a rough rule of thumb a grapevine can produce enough grapes for a bottle of wine but in Sauternes it is closer to a glass. It is not surprising that it isn’t cheap wine.

Despite the fact that Sauternes is one of the worlds greatest wines they are not currently very fashionable in the UK. This is impart due to the fact that many people only associate them with the dessert course and this is not where they show themselves at their best. As an alternative try them with whole range of foods including savoury dishes and of course they can be a superb match with cheese. Try them young when they have lovely freshness or keep them and let them mature to show lovely honey, caramel, orange and nutty flavours.