Winemaker Notes
An exceptional wine. Beautiful, deep-red ruby colour, with the bright sheen of great Burgundies. Intense and fresh nose for the young wines. Primary notes of red fruit dominate, such as Morello cherry ("griotte", or wild cherry), raspberry, blackberry. There are hints of complexity with smoky flavours evolving towards liquorice. When the wine is maturing, aromas of pepper, tobacco, humus and undergrowth appear. When drinking the wine, the first impression is always clear-cut and the texture fleshy. The body is firm without being rough, well meshed without being heavy. There is great freshness in the younger wines. With age, the wine gets rounder. It takes on "gras" (velvety texture) and a more precise architecture, supported by silky tannins. It is lively and refined at the same time. There remains a final and most pleasing sensation of harmony, fullness and delicate tannins, as the wine lingers on the palate.
Professional Ratings
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Decanter
Is Clos des Mouches better suited to red or white grapes? The answer is both in a vintage like 2017. This was picked in five stages to maximise balance and complexity and made with 25% stems and 30% new wood. It's not a blockbuster wine, prefering to charm rather than overwhelm the palate with elegance, refined tannins and spicy, wild strawberry and red cherry flavours.
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James Suckling
Lots of grilled meat, smoke and ripe fruit. Rich and decadent. Medium to full body, round and juicy tannins and a flavorful finish. Layered and juicy for the Clos des Mouches. Better after 2022.
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Wine Spectator
A rich red, with a velvety texture showing off floral, cherry, strawberry, licorice and mineral flavors. Beautifully balanced and firmly structured, this lingers with fresh cherry, iron and spice notes. Best from 2022 through 2035.
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Robert Parker's Wine Advocate
The 2017 Beaune 1er Cru Clos des Mouches is showing beautifully from bottle, wafting from the glass with an inviting bouquet of ripe red berries, orange rind, warm spices and subtle hints of coniferous forest floor. On the palate, the wine is medium to full-bodied, velvety and beautifully harmonious, with the same suave structuring tannins that I identified from barrel, succulent acids and a long, fragrant finish. This is a Clos des Mouches that positively caresses the palate, and it will offer a broad drinking window.
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Wine Enthusiast
This ripe wine has weight and richness while maintaining balancing freshness. Citrus flavors are already integrated with spice from wood aging to give a full, delicious and ready-todrink wine. Dreyfus, Ashby & Co.
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Jasper Morris
This is the white version, which missed being included in our White Burgfest earlier this year. Brisk mid yellow, a little bit of pineapple, fresh peaches, a youthful waxiness, clearly a wine of considerable volume and density. There is an attractive lick of oak on the palate along with a luscious layer of fruit, just enough acidity, all very well balanced. A final taste later in the day showed that the wine had gained in precision and freshness.
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.