ReportageThis famous vineyard has belonged to the Drouhin family for a hundred years. Under the leadership of the third generation, the house seeks to democratize its wines.
What if the history of Clos des Mouches was a nice illustration of the epic of wine-growing Burgundy, that of a few great houses that imposed the name of the region around the world decades ago? Clos des Mouches therefore is a terroir located at the top of a hill, made up of a mosaic of plots of vines, in the extreme south of the Beaune appellation, halfway between Corton-Charlemagne and Montrachet, nearby from Pommard. Names that click like Burgundy flags. It was there that Maurice Drouhin, in 1921, bought one of these plots, believing to find there “The best finage in Beaune”, the potential for the finest wines.
Today, Frédéric Drouhin, the grandson – he runs the house with his brothers Philippe and Laurent and their Sister Véronique – looks at her six plots of Clos des Mouches, or 14 hectares evenly distributed in red and white, with a very particular tenderness. The history of the house was almost born there, even if it was created in 1880 by Joseph Drouhin.
It is the first vineyard to belong to the family. The “flies” recall the fruit-bearing past of this land, when the bees, “Honey flies”, plundered recklessly, long before the reign of chemistry on farmland. “We were coming out of the war, phylloxera, and the Beaune region was mainly devoted to pinot noir. But Maurice decided to complant with chardonnay – at the time, blends were allowed ”, says Frédéric Drouhin. And, when tasting the Chardonnay juices, the idea was imposed to vinify it in white. “It was, at the time, the only beaune 1er cru en blanc, i.e. 600 bottles for which the famous restaurant Maxim’s, in Paris, claimed exclusivity. “
House flagship
Le Clos des Mouches is representative of the mosaic of the Burgundy vineyard. The region has 84 appellations of origin (AOC), including 33 grands crus, 44 village appellations and 7 regional appellations. Which, themselves, can be subdivided into complementary geographical names, including “premier crus”. While Burgundy, with 30,052 hectares, represents only 4% of the surface area of French vineyards, it offers 23% of AOCs. What to mislead the neophyte lover of wine.
Despite a slightly sloping vineyard, the hills nevertheless offering differences in altitude, the terroirs, even within an appellation, or even an estate, reveal their specificities. The Clos des Mouches, with its varied orientations, its clays or its pearly slabs, is very characteristic of this diversity. And remains the flagship of the Drouhin house, despite the hundred appellations offered for sale (mostly grands crus) and its 80 hectares (including 40 in Côte-d’Or). “My father always told me: “You start your harvest with the Clos and you will always end with the Clos ”, thus reflecting the variability encountered on just a few hectares”, says Frédéric Drouhin.
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