With Hart and the wine hoes at mine.

They should’ve just said life is a box of Ch Musar. If you know the winemaker, you’ll know that drinking Musars is a gamble where the lows are often and very low, but the the highs are seductively high. The inter-vintage variations are HUUUGE and can often taste like completely different wines. The intra-vintage / inter-bottle variation is similarly wildly unpredictable with allegedly high rates of faults. Blend of cab sauv, cinsault and carignan in some %.

Naturally, I was nervous opening the bottle. The cork’s tiny but in terrific shape. I quickly took a sniff – ah, I think we should be good.

In the glass: deep ruby with garnet hues. Musars are somehow always high in sediment and also have a milky body. I supposed they don’t filter the wine before bottling? Idk.

On the nose: THIS is why idiots like me gamble with Musars. Fresh into the glass, it’s SUPER beautiful. A sweet mix of super mild and pleasurable volatile acidity and this sweet aromatic red fruit that I can’t quite place (everyone said dates). Tobacco at the end of a deep inhale. Cherry. Raspberry. Straw. As the wine breathed, the deep plum developed in intensity alongside an earthiness. This is just PURE cinsault. Complex. Pretty. I would say though, the initial whiff of super pretty unidentifiable red fruit does dissipate in the glass eventually, instead of being persistent.

On the palate: super super well integrated alcohol despite the 14%. Mid++ acidity, super juicy, silky. Distinct touch of residual sugar that is ultra coherent with the nose.

It’s stupid vintages like this and 2000, that makes me crawl back to gambling with Musar. It’s so fucking good.