Joseph Drouhin
Clos de Mouches Premier Cru Blanc
Beaune
2022

The producer

The 22-year-old Chablisienne, Joseph Drouhin, founded his own wine company in Beaune in 1880. His son Maurice succeeded him and started buying up premium vineyard land. Robert succeeded Maurice in 1957, acquiring even more vineyards including some in Chablis and was one of the first in Burgundy to stop using chemicals and pesticides in the vineyards. Today, Robert and his wife Francoise’s four children, Philippe, Veronique, Laurent and Frederic run the house of Drouhin.

With 80 hectares of vineyards, Joseph Drouhin is one of largest estates in Burgundy owning land from Chablis, in the north, through the Cotes de Nuits and Beaune, and finally Cote Challonaise, in the south. For the regional appellations, the Drouhins complements their fruit supplies by purchasing fruit from long time grower partnerships.

The pinnacle in the Drouhin wine list, is the Domaine Marquis de Laguiche piece of the Montrachet vineyard – which, with 30%, is the largest percentage of land in Le Montrachet. And furthermore, the Beaune Premier Cru vineyard, Clos des Mouches, which produces both a white and a red wine.  They also produce an excellent white from Corton Charlemagne.

The wine

los des Mouches is one of Joseph Drouhin’s most celebrated vineyards and a defining wine of the domaine. Situated at the southern end of Beaune, beside Pommard, the vineyard takes its name from the “mouches à miel”, or honey flies, that once inhabited beehives within the sun-drenched enclosure. Maurice Drouhin assembled the estate’s 14-hectare holding during the 1920s by acquiring 41 separate parcels from eight owners. Planted equally to Chardonnay and Pinot Noir, it is the largest single holding in the vineyard. The Chardonnay is grown on gently sloping, east- and south-east-facing land, where limestone, marl and rocky clay soils bring finesse and minerality. Fermentation and maturation take place in French oak barrels, around 20–25% of which are new, for approximately 16 to 18 months.

Clos des Mouches Blanc is a rich yet beautifully poised expression of Chardonnay, combining white peach, citrus and orchard fruit with notes of white flowers, toasted hazelnut, almond and subtle spice. Full and silky in texture but never heavy, it is shaped by vibrant acidity and a fine mineral backbone, developing nuances of honey, white truffle and nutmeg with bottle age. A white Burgundy of exceptional depth, elegance and persistence, it has the structure to evolve gracefully for many years.

We choose our wines based on a range of criteria (see how we choose our wines) of which critic scores is just one. Rather than simply highlight the best score to promote a wine, our average critic score is calculated from the scores provided by several respected wine critics, who we follow for specific regions. They do not represent all critic scores and, wherever possible, we try and give more weight to more recent reviews. Where appropriate we consider market-based scores like Global Wine Score or Wine Searcher Average scores.

As a rule, we look to offer wines that achieve a 92/100 average critic score or better and frankly a lot of very good wines simply don’t make the cut. As a high-end provider we want to reflect that positioning in the quality of wines we offer. Such wines are only a tiny fraction of those generally on offer in the market. We believe that an average score is a more conservative and representative approach, but it is still subjective and only offered as a guide to our customers, who will (and should) do their own research. We will add individual critic scores to our website in the future.