Get to know: Chateau Musar WHITE 2015
Tasting Note
Pale gold colour with pear, lemon zest and apple with a little vanilla on the nose. It has notes of lemon, orange with good weight, concentration & texture, tangy acidity with ripe fruit. The 2015 vintage is clean and pure with a nervous energy. It is a remarkable example of the indigenous Merwah with its origins in the mountains of Lebanon – it is a rare light skinned grape variety, closely related to Semillon in Bordeaux and gives wines of great ageing potential and finesse.
Producer Info
The Merwah was fermented in new oak barrels and aged 9 months on their lees. It was bottled in August 2016 after cold stabilisation and released after 6 years of ageing.
Very little Chateau Musar White 2015 was produced due to severe frosts in the spring. Unfortunately our crop of Merwah suffered a 70% loss and we were not able to produce any Obaideh this year. We experienced exceptionally cold nights in April with temperatures down to minus 8˚C and in one extreme instance, minus 12˚C, ruining buds already in the process of opening. By early May, we were looking out on hectares of blackened vines and the situation looked catastrophic but gradually like a phoenix rising from the ashes, green shoots began to emerge from the vines.