2004 Blanc Beaune Clos des Mouches 1er Cru

Drouhin’s white Beaune Premier Cru is a classic example of its precise, soil-driven white Burgundies.

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.

The overwhelming majority of the vintages I tasted at Drouhin were in superb condition, and bottles from 1996 and 1995—the first two vintages in which premature oxidation was a serious problem with white Burgundies—were vibrant and youthful. Two older vintages, 1992 and 1979, were in fine form 26 and 39 years after the harvest. Both of these wines were made from generous crop levels—49 and 55 hectoliters per hectare, respectively—and feature moderate acidity, but clearly possess one crucial key to longevity: balance. Perhaps most important, the three youngest vintages I tried—2016, 2015 and 2014—were especially complex and mineral-driven, suggesting that the current team of Drouhins (and Faure-Brac) is a well-oiled machine.

CEO Frederic Drouhin described 2004 as a challenging vintage due to the localized hailstorm in late August that came up from the south. Moreover, careful sorting of the fruit, even the chardonnay, was necessary to eliminate underripe grapes and berries affected by oidium. The alcoholic fermentations proceeded slowly, and a few of the wines still had a couple grams of sugar at the beginning of June. Drouhin felt the slow malos had brought more complexity to the wines, and following the secondary fermentations acidity levels were in the low-average range-not much higher than the 2003s at this address. The 2004s had been racked following the malos. Drouhin presented a selection of the house's top crus, including a couple of Chablis grand crus that I should have included in Issue 121.