2008 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.

After doing no batonnage for the 2006s, winemaker Jerome Faure-Brac stirred the lees of the 2007s every three weeks until the end of the malolactic fermentations. Still, he described the finished 2007s as crystalline, taut, very pure wines. Faure-Brac wasn't yet quite sure what to make of the 2008 whites. "They're certainly showing their new oak now; due to the level of acidity in the wines, one feels the sap of the wood," he told me. "The wines are very tasty today but will that character remain? Will the wines stay fresh? My question about 2008 has to do with pH and longevity. The pHs are surprisingly high considering the high levels of acidity." My early impression is that the 2008s here have more volume than the Drouhin 2007s but perhaps less tension. Grape sugars in Drouhin's estate wines were typically 13% or even higher, and no chaptalization was done. At the time of my visit most of the final blends had been made, but a few '08s (particularly the Corton-Charlemagne and Montrachet) had not yet finished their malos.