There are a large number of wine merchants with wine cellars or caves in Beaune France. Many of them offer tours of their facilities followed by tastings. The underground caves are perfectly acclimatized settings for the storage and development of wine.
On this 90+ degree day in Beaune it was a treat to descend into the underground cellars of the Drouhin family that were constructed in the 1700’s. We were guided through the caves with explanations of the wine making of the region and of the Joseph Drouhin corporation. The caves are dark and most of today’s were also very short, so short I spent a lot of time ducking. The sheer volume of wine in the cellars is amazing. I cannot begin to guess how many thousands of botte and hundreds of barrels of wine are there.
The final part of their underground network has a different history. Drouhin purchased that part from the adjacent Notre Dame church adjoining their own caves. The church’s caves are much older, 1400’s, and also much taller, ceilings can be 12′ or higher. The monks there, in those ancient times made their own wine. The reason for the higher ceilings is reputed to be so that the wine would be closer to the heavens and thus be more blessed. A reconstructed 17th century wine press is one of the pictures below.
Joseph Drouhin set up shop on in Beaune in 1880 to age his wines. Currently, Maison Joseph Drouhin is a leading Burgundian wine merchant and producer. Today our tour was followed by a tasting of 8 wines. The first four are whites, thus Chardonnay, and the last four are red, thus Pinot Noir as is the Burgundian tradition.
Chablis 1er Cru Vaillons 2023
Côte de Beaune white 2021
Meursault 1er Cru La pièce sous le bois 2020
Corton Charlemagne Grand Cru 2022
Volnay 2022
Beaune 1er Cru Clos des Mouches rouge 2021
Vosne Romanée 1er cru 2022
Clos de Vougeot Grand Cru 2019
All of the wines tasted demonstrated the dedication to quality of the Drouhin family. It is that quality that allows them to charge more for their tastings than most other caves in town. As noted previously, I am a wine lover, and I hold Pinot Noir and Burgundy in the highest esteem of any wines. For these reasons, I was willing to pay 115 euros for this tour and tasting. They also offer tastings for 65 and 85 euros.
I assumed incorrectly that the overall quality of the three tastings would be commensurate to the price. One wine is changed and 5 remain the same from the 65 to 85 euro tasting; and then two higher quality wines were added to the 115 euro tasting. I had hoped that the overall quality would rise with the expensive tasting. That did not happen as 5 wines remained the same in each tasting. Of the 8 wines sampled only 5 had sufficient aging to demonstrate the charm and power of the Burgundian craft. I do not understand why they would serve 5 wines that caused us to struggle to appreciate what makes Drouhin and Burgundy special, not that any of the wines were bad. Nothing about 5of the wines would inspire me at all to buy them, especially since there is a wide selection of inexpensive wines in the supermarkets in France. Without US tariffs and taxes, it is amazing the quality available in the 4 -1o euro range. My choice, my mistake and I will live with that; but I definitely cannot recommend this tasting and tour. That is okay because now I know, and I have one more day to seek out a transcendental Burgundy experience.
On the plus side we had a good English-speaking guide and being in the beautiful, ancient and cool caves on a 90+ degree day was a great treat. The pictures below are of the Drouhin sales room. Sheila can be seen chatting with our extremely competent guide and our tour mates from Green Bay Wisconsin and Washington DC are in the background. It was a wonderful group, and the two women are both doing the sommelier training. They were both full of knowledge that enhanced our experience. Overall, a good day.
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Wow, not so great experience and not fantastic wine, bummer, but at least you were cool in the caves.
The names of those wines bring back so many memories of my first year on the barges. The crew I first worked with was happy on our 1 night off to go out for a good meal and compliment it with a good wine. There was not much time to spend any money so we ate and drank well instead. Some of those names are very familiar.
How was the Vosne Romanee? I recall we did enjoy a few of those.
I am sorry the tasting was a little disappointing, but not a total loss:)!!