The 2016 Clos des Mouches rouge was one of the few wines in the cellars this year to include ten percent whole clusters. The wine was a touch reduced at the time of my visit, but with a little coaxing in the glass, its quality became very easy to read. The nose eventually offers up a lovely and nicely black fruity blend of sweet dark berries, black cherries, fresh thyme, a superb signature of soil, gamebird, espresso and a smoky topnote. On the palate the wine is deep, pure and very refined in profile, with a sappy core of black fruit, lovely transparency, suave tannins and great length and grip on the nascently complex finish. This wine reminds me aromatically and in terms of flavors very much of the superb 1993 Clos des Mouches, but the structural elements here are more refined and the wine will be more elegant when it is fully mature. Needless to say, that is a very good combination!

Tasted from bottle, the 2016 Beaune 1er Cru Clos des Mouches Rouge has deepened and fleshed out since I tasted it from barrel, and today its superb potential is impossible to dispute. Wafting from the glass with a rich bouquet of raspberries, black cherries, rich soil tones and spices and deftly framed by toasty new oak, the wine is medium to full-bodied, fleshy but vibrant, with a layered, textural mid-palate, velvety tannins and a long, precise finish. This is a serious, broad-shouldered Clos des Mouches that will offer a broad drinking window.- WK

Aromas of red and black fruit, game bird, raw cocoa and orange rind precede a supple, medium-full palate with a sapid core of fruit, bright acids, and a chassis of fine, velvety tannins. 2016’s Clos des Mouches is shaping up to be an elegant middleweight. Read more at https://www.decanter.com/wine-reviews/france/burgundy/domaine-joseph-drouhin-beaune-1er-cru-clos-des-mouches-17022#WZsgLAM2Wt4W6glu.99