Tasting of Joseph Drouhin wines, the 2006 Burgundy vintage

One of the advantages of having spent too much money on wine in the past is being invited to pre-release tastings. These are usually delightful affairs with little snacks, lots of clean glasses, and sometimes, really good wine.

My wife and I recently attended a tasting of Joseph Drouhin’s 2006 wines. We are fans of Drouhin’s Clos de Mouches Blanc and his Clos de Mouches Rouge, so we were looking forward to trying the ’06s.

2006 was a difficult year in French vineyards. A long winter delayed budding and a wet and cloudy August threatened the harvest before the sun came out in September. Drouhin started harvesting grapes on the 16th of September in Chablis and on the 18th in the Côte de Beaune. Rapidly ripening grapes compressed the harvest to two weeks instead of the usual three.

Early reports from The Big Red Diary suggested that with proper sorting, 2006 would be a good vintage for Burgundy. As the grapes made their way to the bottle, reports on the vintage were upbeat. Jancis Robinson’s final report on the 2006 vintage called the whites “seductive and of excellent quality”. She also reported that the reds were “of high quality across the board”.

The tasting we attended had these 12 wines from Drouhin:

Chablis 1er Cru Séchers
Chablis Grand Cru Vaudésir
Chassagne-Montrachet
Puligny-Montrachet
Meursault
Beaune Clos des Mouches Blanc
Côte de Beaune
Volnay
Beaune Clos des Mouches Rouge
Chambolle-Musigny
Gevrey-Chambertin
Charmes-Chambertin

The Séchers Chablis 1er Cru was an inoffensive wine, but it was definitely outclassed by the whites that followed. We liked the Puligny-Montrachet a little more than the Chassagne-Montrachet but both wines were balanced with good acid and minerality, the Puligny had just a little more.

Our favorite white was the Beaune Clos des Mouches Blanc. This is a powerful wine with a nose of honeyed fruit, mineral, and vanilla. The wine follows through with a rich balanced feel and a long finish. At about $100 a bottle, you might decide that your first child needs skip college so you can use the money to buy Clos des Mouches Blanc for your cellar.

The reds started off with the ’06 Côte de Beaune which is not as good as the ’05 but still a reasonable drink at about $25. The Volnay was also a fine example of Pinot Noir from the ’06 vintage. The Chambolle-Musigny was showing the best of the three village designations with dried fruit and barnyard. But once again our favorite was the Clos des Mouches Rouge. The wine showed good structure and a little more finesse than the others with fine tannins, cherries, and dried fruit. This wine will definitely be going into my collection.

On the whole the ’06 wines from Drouhin were quite good and will be ready to drink long before the ’05 vintage. I am restricting my purchases of the ’05 and paying more attention to the ’06. There will not be as much competition for these wines as there is for the ‘05s, and they may be almost as good.

Check out these related posts:

1. A wine-filled prelude to birthday celebrations
2. Wine Tasting – 2007 Bordeauxs
3. The first tasting — Smooth vs. Bold wines
4. Tasting West Virginian wines from The Forks of Cheat Winery
5. Speed tasting at the Wine Bloggers Conference