Winemaker Notes
Fruit aromas combined with light toasty notes on the nose. Both fleshy and refined, Clos de la Mousse reveals its charms with delicacy. Good ageing potential. Pair with white meat dishes, grilled poultry.
Professional Ratings
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Decanter
The deep clay soils inside this four-walled clos mean that this 3.36ha terroir never suffers in hot years like 2017, retaining sufficient moisture for the vines. This stylish, aromatic, violet-scented Pinot is wonderfully fresh and charming, with subtle whole-bunch characters and deftly applied 20% new wood.
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James Suckling
Unique aromas of tile, stone and iodine highlight the strawberry and dried-berry character. It’s full-to medium-bodied with creamy yet firm tannins and a flavorful finish. Some seaweed and dried-earth undertones. A little tight now, but already a very complex wine. Better after 2024.
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Wine Spectator
Fruity, showing grip, this red offers currant, cherry, stony mineral and spice flavors. Offers a chalky feel, with a stone hint on the somewhat austere finish. Best from 2021 through 2035.
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Wine Enthusiast
Ripe, juicy and packed with cherry fruits, this is a generous wine. It also has potential with its dense tannins and dry core. The wine needs time, so drink from 2023.
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Wine & Spirits
Bright and intense, this wine’s floral blueberry scents need time to emerge from its tannins. The structure is solidly built, those tannins as chewy as blueberry skins. It’s ripe and tight, a wine to cellar for five years or more.
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Wilfred Wong of Wine.com
COMMENTARY: "Give that wine guy in the corner a bone." I meant to say, "Beaune." The 2017 Bouchard Père & Fils Clos de la Mousse lives on solid ground and is always one this area's best wines. TASTING NOTES: This wine is perfectly poised, yet it has a pleasing savage note about itself. Its racy and riveting aromas and flavors of red fruit and chalk invite an evening with a perfectly-ripened round of Époisses de Bourgogne and a wedge of Comté. Toss in a fresh baguette and the wine guy in the corner will be more than satisfied. (Tasted: March 14, 2019, San Francisco, CA)
Thin-skinned, finicky and temperamental, Pinot Noir is also one of the most rewarding grapes to grow and remains a labor of love for some of the greatest vignerons in Burgundy. Fairly adaptable but highly reflective of the environment in which it is grown, Pinot Noir prefers a cool climate and requires low yields to achieve high quality. Outside of France, outstanding examples come from in Oregon, California and throughout specific locations in wine-producing world. Somm Secret—André Tchelistcheff, California’s most influential post-Prohibition winemaker decidedly stayed away from the grape, claiming “God made Cabernet. The Devil made Pinot Noir.”
While the city represents the epicenter of wine production in Burgundy, the term, “Beaune” also refers to the specific sub-appellation of the greater Côte de Beaune, whose vineyards climb up the pastoral slopes that border the city to its west. Originally founded as a Roman camp by Julius Caesar, the city of Beaune eventually became the seat of the dukes of Burgundy until the 13th century. Today it is home to top négociants such as Louis Jadot, Joseph Drouhin, Louis Latour, and Bouchard Père et Fils.
The appellation, dominated by Pinot Noir plantings, represents a lovely and charming place to begin to understand red Burgundy. Its sandy soils create light and supple, floral driven Pinot Noir. These wines are designed to be enjoyed within five to 10 years. The vineyards of Beaune span a broad swath of Premier Crus from Savigny-lès-Beaune to its border with Pommard.
Chardonnay acreage here has been increasing here in the more recent years.