Joseph Drouhin’s Beaune Clos des Mouches Blanc: 1979-2016
BY STEPHEN TANZER |
Joseph Drouhin’s Beaune Clos des Mouches Blanc is an oxymoron of a Burgundy: an insider’s wine that’s normally made in generous quantities. While some wine oenophiles may turn up their noses at the very idea of white wine from Beaune—not to mention the appellation in particular, as it possesses no Grand Crus, red or white—this Premier Cru is way more interesting, and serious, than it has any right to be. Long-time fans of Drouhin’s pure, elegantly styled white wines are well aware their Clos des Mouches blanc is an outperformer, and a chameleon that can mimic wines from Grand Cru sites on the Côte de Beaune. Time and again, in my tastings of new vintages chez Drouhin, the Clos des Mouches Blanc has taxed my lexicon of descriptors—and that’s a good thing.
Clos des Mouches in winter
The History of Clos des Mouches at Drouhin
Maison Drouhin was founded in Beaune in 1880 by Joseph Drouhin, then just 22 years of age. But it was his son Maurice who was largely responsible for launching the family’s domain operation: one of the first vineyards (along with Clos-Vougeot) he acquired was the Clos des Mouches. And he was obviously enamored of the site, as he purchased 41 different parcels from 8 owners beginning in 1921—14 hectares in total. The land had been planted just after phylloxera and was essentially 100% Pinot Noir, with some scattered Pinot Blanc and Pinot Gris vines, when Drouhin purchased it. Although mouches means “flies” in French, Beaune Clos des Mouches was actually named after the bee hives that were kept in this sunny, enclosed cru; the bees were called mouches à miel (literally, “honey flies”) in the local dialect.
Today, roughly 7 of the 14 hectares are planted to Chardonnay and 7 to Pinot Noir. Beaune Clos des Mouches is the Drouhin family’s biggest vineyard holding in Burgundy, as well as the single largest cru holding on the Côte d’Or. (To put the size of the Drouhin holding in context, all of Le Montrachet and Chevalier-Montrachet combined covers just over 15 hectares.)
Much later on, Robert Drouhin, who assumed direction of the firm in 1957, made massive purchases of vineyards in the late 1950s and early ‘60s. Today, the Drouhin family has one of the most important domains in Burgundy, owning just over 78 hectares of vineyards in the Côte de Nuits, Côte de Beaune, Côte Chalonnaise and Chablis, fully two-thirds of which are classified as Premier or Grand Cru. Drouhin supplements its production by purchasing grapes, must and wine, mostly in village or regional appellations from grower partners but in a few cases in Premier and Grand Crus.
Clos des Mouches vines worked by horse
The AOC of Beaune is the largest on the Côte d’Or, consisting of just over 400 hectares (about 1,000 acres) of village and Premier Cru land. Beaune’s Premier Crus, situated mostly on clay and limestone soil on gentle slopes, span the length of the appellation, with vineyards on the north side of the village typically producing fuller, stronger wines while those in the southern section, closer to Pommard, frequently show an element of delicacy that is more akin to Volnay than to Pommard. Drouhin’s extensive acreage in Clos des Mouches is situated on a mild incline on the mid-slope at the southern end of the appellation adjacent to Pommard, facing east/southeast.
Joseph Drouhin’s Beaune Clos des Mouches Blanc is an oxymoron of a Burgundy: an insider’s wine that’s normally made in generous quantities. While some wine oenophiles may turn up their noses at the very idea of white wine from Beaune—not to mention the appellation in particular, as it possesses no Grand Crus, red or white—this Premier Cru is way more interesting, and serious, than it has any right to be.
