Maison Joseph Drouhin

I’m interested in your views on Drouhin wines, as I have very limited experience. There has been a lot of chatter on the wine boards in recent years, maybe last 5 years, but much less prior to that time, IIRC. When I was becoming interested in Burgundy in the mid-1980’s, there were no wine boards, there was very little critical coverage of Drouhin that I recall seeing, and my #1 main wine merchant did not carry these wines. So Drouhin was very much under my radar.

Now, in recent years, I hear a lot of folks say the wines are really great, very elegant and graceful, very true to their individual cru, and are worth the price.

Other folks say the wines are good and widely available, but the characteristic Drouhin elegance partly comes from sterile filtering the guts out, and also the distinctiveness of the cru goes out too, so the wines are all too much like one another. And the good-value pricing is history from the distant past.

What say you about Maison Joseph Drouhin?

Great question, Lewis. I have very little experience with them – looking forward to the responses.

While not a ton of experience, this is very much my take. I think the Clos des Mouches and Chambolle 1er have been consistently great recently, can’t comment on much of the higher end bottles…

IN general…

The lower level wines are tremendous values (Cote du Nuits Villages, Chorey, etc.) I recently had a 1978 Chorey that was delicate but lovely.

The village wines aren’t worth the upgrade in price from the entry level wines. That is, they’re 2-3x the price but not dsitinctive enough to warrant that.

The better premier crus and grand crus can be very very good. At one point (pre 2005) they were bargains. A 1999 Griotte a few months ago was very much Griotte and a baby in need of another 5-10 years. Since 2005 they are priced like other grand crus. For example, the 99 Griotte was somewhere around $100 when I bought it. The 2009 is $300.

If you want to see what they’re like in fact, I’d look for well stored 1999s, 2001s etc. Things like the Cote du Nuits Villages, etc are easy case buys for short term drinking when you like a vintage - they are around $20 and kill most domestic Pinot at that price.

I probally drink more Drouhin than any other producer (though that is changing). When I started getting into burgs with the 2002 and 2003 vintages they were the most commonly found burgs around here (other than the North berkelely import wines that I largely didn’t like) so I pretty much cut my teeth with them and they were a big influence on what I learned to look for with burgundy. I agree that the good prices are mostly a thing of the past. The prices were fantastic back then compared to other burgs but that changed with the 2005 vintage and they have never come back down.

What I like about Drouhin more than anything are the aromatics. From Bourgognes and Beaujolais up to their Musigny I just love the complex perfumes found in their wines. We had the 2007 Musginy two nights ago and depite being so young the aromas were just so amazingly fantastic. My favorite wines from them are usually the lighter styles terroirs like CMs, Volnays, SLBs, Charmes Chambertin and Petite Monts. I think that is where they shine best. They also push out a fairly high production of Chorey les Beaune which in most years is very pertty and a great QPR (the 2007 has an astringency on the finish I don’t like).

Flavor wise, the wines might be highly filtered because they are rarely lush or highly generous but they often have a very clean, pure and high energy quality that I really like.

Also, starting in 2006 Ive found their basic Bourgogne to drink really well for the level and I can get it for $10 on sale usually so I usually get a bunch for causual drinking. Alot of Bourgognes are quite rustic but Drouhin produces a silkier and pretty version that I like. Its really the only Bourgogne I buy anymore.

One thing about Drouhin is that the wines are usually horrible pop and pours. When tasted in a lineup they usually need more air than the other wines to fully open up.

One more thing about them. Filtering aside, they seem to actively strive for elegance over power. At the last SF la paulee I got a chance to talk to Veronique Drouhin and she seemed sincere in wanting to maintain that as the house style.

Well, that much is certainly true.

For quite a long time, Matt Kramer’s take on Drouhin was accepted fact- and while he did accord due praise to some of Drouhin’s great wines like Griotte and Beaune Clos des Mouches, I do think he underestimated the long term potential of the broader portfolio in the wake of just how well the wines show young.

That said- I think some of his comments were fair, if a bit harsh, and pricing in the marketplace then and now is an interesting exercise in the realities of supply and demand.

In his book “Making Sense of Burgundy”, Kramer claims that Drouhin makes a “second-rank” Montrachet.

If you are comparing the wine to the DRC or Ramonet versions, a case can be made for that if you want to get down to a ridiculous level of detail- and also throw personal preference out the window. Generally speaking, if you get down to the finest minutiae- DRC and Ramonet Montrachet usually offer subtleties that I do not find in Drouhin Montrachet. But that does not change the fact that Drouhin Montrachet is an incredibly fine wine and has- for me- been a jawdropping experience on more that on occasion.

Nor does it take into account personal preference. These are 3 very different wines- more different than one can imagine if a person has not tasted each of them a few times. If you were to take away the rarity and pricing issues associated with all 3 by serving them all blind from a single vintage, I think it is safe to say you would find fans and naysayers for each of them- with strong opinions all around. This is a good thing- if a wine cannot be so singular as to immeasurably move a handful of dedicated fans then it is not all that special to begin with.

One could be a deservedly respected connoissieur of Burgundy and say he prefers the Drouhin version to Ramonet or DRC. That is my benchmark for quality, and so I say that the Drouhin is top rank as are many of their other wines.

Consider too the realities of supply and demand here. Something interesting has happened since the 2005 vintage- Drouhin and Jadot Montrachet are now more expensive than the much rarer and more coveted Ramonet bottling- more expensive, that is, at release at fair retailer markup. Until 2008, Drouhin and Jadot Musigny were more expensive than Roumier under the same terms- though with 2009 that has changed as the Roumier version flirts with 4-figure territory.

There is a reason for this- at a certain point, supply becomes so small that it actually impacts demand negatively. You will find this very commonly in the gemstone world actually. Once something gets rare enough, it loses its prominence because too few people can afford it and so that segment of buyers who have more than the wine itself guiding their purchases will look elsewhere to do prestige buying.

Drouhin has always been underrated- but the pricing of today is driven more by a sufficient supply of the wines to attract the interest of a worldwide audience, and also by the major Domaines/Maisons having the cash flow from lower end wines to be more aggressive in their pricing up front.

Sadly Drouhin is no longer a good “value” at the top end- but if you like the wines more than other top burgundies you have access too, well worth the money.

I have had access to Drouhin more than perhaps any other Burgundy producer and like others have a high proportion of Drouhin bottlings in the cellar. Also happened upon some 1996 library wines such as C-M Amoureuses and Grand Echezeaux. I am definitely a fan, finding these wines to be graceful and elegant rather than sterile and filtered excessively (if I had to choose between the two).

Cheers,
Doug

I have always thought highly of Drouhin but not drunk that many. Always buy a few at the top end, must open some… Rousseau wines are filtered or so I thought so not entirely in bad company… Cheers Mike

I think the drouhin vs. ramonet/drc comparison should be looked at more as a puligny vs. chassagne exercise i.e. Montrachet vs. le Montrachet. Also technically the drouhin is not a domain wine but for all intents and purposes it is. I love them all … almost as much as Chevalier !

I’ve been a fan for a long time. Admittedly the style is subtle and some may find that off putting. I love the fact that the style really allows the terroirs to express themselves and are not masked by winemaking. Due to their rather elegant style they often don’t shine in group settings but shine at the table. I see little value in comparing Drouhin to DRC (Rousseau, Ramonet) as Drouhin is a large volume negociant and as such the wines need to be looked at individually (much like Jadot). I believe that the wines offer great value and look to Drouhin for the following wines.

Reds: Cote de Beaune (Mouches label)…always a GREAT value usually 20-25 on release :slight_smile: as well as Beaune Clos des Mouches.
Chambolle…For whatever reason they excel here from AC, 1er cru and the amazing Musigny.
The Chorey also offers great value (yes value in Burgundy does exist).
Two brilliant wines from Drouhin are the Griotte and Vosne Petits Monts (which sadly is at GC $)

Whites: The Clos des Mouches is always a favorite as well as Chassagne Marquis de Laguiche they also do a good job with Chablis (but I don’t often buy them, too many other producers I seek out). They also produce a worthy Meursault Perrieres and Puligny Folatieres.

I became a fan when I had the Clos de Beze 1979 for an anniversary dinner and thought it one of the best wines I had all year. Since then, I’ve been lucky enough to taste Beze over several vintages, and have yet to find anything short of brilliant. This may be one of the sweet spots of the Drouhin range, as the pricing while high, is not ridiculous, given its quality.

Great advice here on a great producer. I love the style of the wines that I have had. I certainly have not drunk all of the wines they make but to Chris’s list I would add Clos St. Denis, which is generally outstanding or better- have only tasted young wines in the last few years. Also just drank a bottle of 1985 Beaux Monts this month that was indeed stunning! I don’t know if she makes this wine anymore though.

I’ve always been interested in their Griottes-Chambertin because it is such a small vineyard to begin with. As stated by others, the V-R Petits Monts is special, no doubt because of Veronique’s personal input.

I haven’t had a lot of the higher-end Drouhin, but a '93 Musigny was the most spellbinding wine I’ve had in my life. So there’s that.

My experiences are somewhat limited, but overall good to excellent. It should be noted that their top wines, like Musigny, Amoureuses, Griotte, Clos des Mouches, etc., are domaine wines, from parcels they manage themselves (as is the case with many wines from Jadot, Faiveley, Bouchard, etc.). There is always some indication on the front label to indicate a domaine wine.

Thanks for all the great comments so far. As I said at the outset, I have little experience with Drouhin, but I value subtlity and elegance very highly in Burgs. So with all the wine board talk about Drouhin, a few years ago I bought a few. This was in early 2009, the depth of the financial crisis, and auction prices plummented, so I grabed 1993 and 2006 Vosne Petits Monts.

The 1993 turned out to be heat damaged, and I sent it back for refund. The 2006 seemed “elegant to a fault” because the wine lacked intensity and energy and length. Really rather nondescript considering the cru and the esteem of the producer. My first bottle of the '06 was so disappointing that I suspected very mild TCA taint, so I opened another but both were the same. My third bottle, a few months later, was “slightly more expressive on nose and palate, but seems stripped compared to other '06’s tasted recenly… I tried to like this wine, and did like it somewhat… Excellent” (for me, that is ~87/100.)

My lame attempt at humor on my 4th try… “June 2009: Like her quite well, but she is a bit too petite in the monts, perhaps some kneenex stuffed in her bra would help, but nice long legs and good persoanality.”

I’m expecting better from a few others bought cheap in early 2009, which are '01 Moose, '05 Petites Monts, and '05 Chambolle Baudes. Has anyone tried the Baudes recently?

One thing to be aware of with many of the Drouhin reds is that they will put on weight as the age.

For many years they made up about 80% of my Burgundy buying as the price for the quality was so amazing. As price caught up with quality my Drouhin buying has declined quite a bit. Obviously plenty of other people to take my place.

I havn’t tried the Baudes but the 2005 Chambolle 1er is very good so hopefully the bodes well

How much air did those petite monts get?