White moose '99

S

Saina Nieminen

Saina Nieminen
Chteau Musar Blanc 1999 12,5% abv; Merwah & Obaideh grapes (Merwah is possibly an ancestor of Smillon; Obaideh (=Arabic: "the little slave/servant girl") is possibly that of Chardonnay); from some of the highest vineyards in the Biq'a-valley

Since there seems to be quite a few who enjoy white Tondonias, I decided to open up a bottle that strongly reminded me of that style.

Orange colour: it looks old, but don't let that fool you - the '59, '69 and '75 whites are drinking well now (and the 1990-1999 are very young). The scent is lovely, oxidative but not oxidised (if you accept that there is a difference between these two words), full of apricot, white flowers and spice but not spice as in new oak (afaik, all oak for white Musar is old); earthy.

Full bodied, tannic, perhaps lower in acidty than Disorderlies like, but still extremely moreish - always another sip is welcome. Interminable aftertaste of orange and earth. Lovely.

I had this with a chunk of lightly smoked halibut (which worked very well) but I would guess that some meaty dishes would be better now because of the tannins. But best of all might be to wait a couple decades? I wish I had the patience since it is so wonderful now.
 
nice notes, Otto. i had the 2000 last year and would definitely love to try more...esp. older ones. you are right, it is fabulous with fish, but stood up to everything we threw at it that night, including roasted peppered pork. the wine did a lot of morphing between salty acid burgundy and floral white rhone over time, amazing aromatics, but really unique, unlike anything i've had before. a last glass in the bottle 2 days later was sublime. next time i will start decanting well in advance of dinner.

by the way, the friend who turned me on to the 2000 is a musar freak, and he is now lined up to try the '89 Tondonia, so i will be very curious to see his response.
 
Hi Joel, I think the 2000 is also a nice white Musar, but not perhaps on the level of the '96 or '90 or '75. I'm drinking the last drops of the '99 now and it is still wonderful: air doesn't seem to wreak its usual havoc with Musar.

It's a pity older vintages of white Moose are practically impossible to find: I only got them in Bayrut and Ghazir when I had the opportunity to visit more often. They were very fairly priced, too.
 
originally posted by Otto Nieminen:
Hi Joel, I think the 2000 is also a nice white Musar, but not perhaps on the level of the '96 or '90 or '75. I'm drinking the last drops of the '99 now and it is still wonderful: air doesn't seem to wreak its usual havoc with Musar.

It's a pity older vintages of white Moose are practically impossible to find: I only got them in Bayrut and Ghazir when I had the opportunity to visit more often. They were very fairly priced, too.
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i agree about the availability of the older whites...too bad they aren't as plentiful as the tondonia's seem to be (production issue maybe, but i know there are far more red musar fans than white, so maybe demand as well?)

fwiw, my friend seems to pick up most of his musar whites when traveling through dubai.
 
The last time I went through Dubayy, they only had recent vintages of the red, no whites at all. Has that changed in the past couple years? I didn't enjoy Dubayy at all, so perhaps I'll still try to find my way to Lebanon instead. Dubayy is a really depressing city IMO.

-O
 
originally posted by Otto Nieminen:
The last time I went through Dubayy, they only had recent vintages of the red, no whites at all. Has that changed in the past couple years? I didn't enjoy Dubayy at all, so perhaps I'll still try to find my way to Lebanon instead. Dubayy is a really depressing city IMO.

-O
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Otto, I will ask my friend about his european Musar shopping sprees. I seem to recall him talking about another location too...tho if you can make it to Lebanon, well...

Dubai does sound like a bit of a hallucination.
 
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