Beaune Clos des Mouches Rouge, Joseph Drouhin 2023 75cl
The Clos des Mouches is Drouhin family folklore. Maurice Drouhin spent the 1920s buying up 41 separate parcels from eight owners to assemble this one hillside at the southern end of Beaune, hard against Pommard, and the house now farms around 14 hectares of it. The odd name means "flies" — a nod to the honey-bees once kept in this sun-trap, called mouches à miel in old Burgundian dialect.
This is the red half of the site, Pinot Noir grown on clay-limestone and farmed biodynamically. The 2023 vintage was one of the hottest Burgundy has seen, which for once came with generous yields rather than heartbreak — ripe fruit, real flesh, and none of the meanness of a frost year.
Véronique Boss-Drouhin describes a deep ruby wine with an intense, fresh nose: morello cherry, raspberry and blackberry up front, then smoke and liquorice creeping in as it opens. The texture is the point here. It is fleshy and firm at once, the tannins fine-grained rather than gripping, closing on a chalky note that keeps everything lifted.
At £120 this is proper premier cru Burgundy from a name that has never cut corners on this vineyard. Drink a bottle now with plenty of air to see the fruit at its most exuberant, or cellar it — it will reward a decade or two and hold for longer.
How to Serve
Serve at 16°C in a wide Burgundy bowl. Decant young bottles for an hour; the 2023's ripeness opens beautifully with air.
Where to Drink It
Noble Rot in Bloomsbury, where the Burgundy list is treated with real reverence. Bibendum for a grown-up lunch. The Wolseley if you want the theatre of a great room around a great bottle.
Food Pairings
Roast duck or a rare-breed pork loin suits its flesh and acidity. A plate of aged Comté late in the evening works just as well.
