Published by Jeremy.
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For those who are seriously into wine, we can hazard a guess you likely remember the exact bottle that made you stop and go “wow, wine can taste this good?!”
For us, we can remember it like it was yesterday. We were trying some premium pours at Wine Bar George and it was suggested to try a Coravin pour of Chateau Musar 1998 which was, at that point at least, among the very oldest wines we've ever had.
One sip, and it was love at first site and we have been collecting Chateau Musar ever since.
But one bottle eluded us for quite sometime, and that was another of the Chateau Musar 1998 Rouge, which we one day happened to find for a rather reasonable price point. Naturally, it didn't last too long in our cellar, and we enjoyed it in 2026 when this one was approaching 28 years old.
What a wine it is!
Chateau Musar Makes Incredible Red Wine Worth Aging
The 1998 Chateau Musar is a blend of Cabernet Sauvignon, Cinsault and Carignan and was pale garnet in color. On the nose, we had notes of leather, tobacco, violet, date, dried fig, dried cranberry, cedar, menthol (that went away quickly), cacao, and cassis to name a few.
On the palate, it was dry with medium(+) acidity, body, and flavor intensity, medmium(-) velvety tannin, medium alcohol, and a long finish. We had notes of dried black cherry, dried cranberry, date, fig, leather, violet, tobacco, prune, bramble, cedar, blueberry, and cola.
It is hard not to love this wine. From the velvety tannin to the complex flavor profile, this one took us back to our very first sip many years ago. While I would've wanted to age this one a bit longer and opened it as I was concerned about its possible condition (which ended up being fine), I would say that this bottle in particular did seem like it was reaching its peak with tannins having fully matured, the acidity starting to turn, and the alcohol being a bit on the hot side ever-so-slightly.
Therein lies the challenge of taking a risk of a bottle that may have been on a store shelf for a while (as we, hopefully, would've stored it properly ourselves in our cellar had we bought it earlier), but, in the end, this one still was a winner!
Chateau Musar 1998 Food Pairing – Moroccan Lamb Shank
We paired this lovely red blend with a sous vide lamb shank made with Moroccan spices on top of couscous with apricot to pair the fattiness of the lamb and spices with the complex wine.
This pairing was, of course, excellent. The richness of the lamb helped highlight more dried red fruit notes, like dried red cherry, cranberry, and red raspberry that were not as prominent when drinking this one on its own, and the overall wine had a nice velvety texture that worked well with the fatty lamb.
Score: 4.5 / 5
We want several bottles of this one.
Overall, its hard not to love a Chateau Musar Rouge of any vintage, but having another of our origin bottle from the 1998 vintage was a rare treat. We'd, naturally, love to have several bottles more of this one, but given the mature age of this wine, we would want to make sure that wherever we found it had stored it properly, as you do have a risk with old bottles such as these all the same.
But that is a risk we'd be willing to take, because Chateau Musar 1998 is an incredible wine!
em>Chateau Musar is located in Ghazir, Lebanon. We purchased this bottle locally and enjoyed it in 2026. Wine.com carries many Chateau Musar labels including young wines and a few aged at the time of publication; however, we have not seen a bottle as old as this one available.
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