France Adventure, Day 8 – May 30, 2013 – Domaine Drouhin-Laroze

Bonjour et bienvenue à Cépage et Cuisine, le vin et la cuisine blogue de Mary et Brian.  Today was our day to visit and have lunch at Domaine Drouhin-Laroze.  If you decide to visit Burgundy, we highly recommend you plan a lunch and visit to enjoy the gracious hospitality of Christine Drouhin.

Domaine Drouhin-Laroze is a six generation family domaine, dating back to 1850 when Jean-Baptiste Laroze began the operation in Gevrey-Chambertin.  In 1919, Suzanne Laroze married Alexandre Drouhin, whose family owned vineyards in Chambolle-Musigny, and the domaine has since been known as Drouhin-Laroze.  Christine and her husband Philippe Drouhin currently manage the estate.

Christine hosts luncheon gatherings as a way to promote the domaine and its wines, as well as to help visitors understand more about Burgundy.  We partook last year and had such a nice time that we wanted to visit again.  Christine came outside to greet us when we arrived and invited us to visit the barrel cellar.  The cellar is unusual in that it is on two levels, each level of a similar size.

You can see some of the famous grand cru vineyard names in these photos … Clos de Beze, Musigny, Clos Vougeot.  She described the barrel program.  They use new, one year used, and two years used barrels. 

 

The proportion of wine in new or used barrels depends on the level of the vineyard with village wines getting the least new oak, premier cru wines getting more, and grand cru wines getting the most.  This is because the intensity, power, and complexity of the grand cru vineyards accepts and integrates oak influence more effectively than simpler vineyard sites.

She isn’t sure exactly when the cellars were dug, but most likely several hundred years ago, well before the Drouhin-Laroze estate acquired the property.  She is also not certain when or why this extra room with the small door was created, but says family history indicates captured Prussians may have been held there during the Franco-Prussian War of 1870 and 1871.

We were joined by a group of six Americans for the lunch.  Christine began by talking about the vineyards of the Côte de Nuits and the parcels owned by Domaine Drouhin-Laroze in Gevrey-Chambertin, Chambolle-Musigny, and Clos Vougeot, including parcels that are classified as village, premier cru, and grand cru.

We adjourned to the terrace for lunch.  The patio was enclosed today because of the cold, rainy weather, but you can see their small vineyard just outside.  The grapes from it go in a village-level cuvée because they are only nine years old.  When they are closer to 20 years old, they may bottle it separately.  Like many Burgundians, the Drouhin family believes 20-30 years are necessary for a vineyard to really express itself after planting or replanting.

We waited for the lunch to begin with anticipation.  Christine presented the list of wines available for lunch, the carte des vins. 

 

Several of her wines are available in demi-boutilles, half bottles, so that we could choose two wines and contrast them.

She suggested we taste the wines before beginning the lunch to get an initial impression without food, then compare that experience with how they taste with food.  We chose two grand cru examples from 2008, Chambertin Clos de Bèze and the Bonnes Mares. 

Here’s Mary contrasting the color and depth of the two wines. 

 

In this photo, the Bonnes Mares is on the left (my right).  You can see it is slightly less intense in color than the Clos de Bèze. 

Of the two wines, the Bonnes Mares was definitely more perfumed and aromatic of earth notes, flowers, herbs, and high-toned red fruit.  The palate showed a wonderful, long, silkiness in the mouth, velvety in the way it coats the palate, with nice, medium acidity, and flavors of red and dark fruit, berries and cherries, mostly.  The complexity of the aromas and flavors was amazing.  It was so well balanced and long in the finish.

The Clos de Bèze was more reticent on the nose, more minerally, perhaps even an iron note, maybe some leather but with less obvious earth and fruit.  It was rather angular on the palate with great freshness, almost a salinity on the back end, without sensuous fruit but there was some currant going on in there.  It was almost “Cistercian” in its proportions.  I got the sense this is definitely a wine that has not yet reached optimum drinkability.  Christine agreed, saying the Bonnes Mares is more elegant, refined at this stage, feminine, and ready to drink.  The Clos de Bèze always requires more time, but will reach a lovely expression in a couple more years.

The lunch was a replay of last year, which was fine with us.  The first course was warm gougères with a small salad and jambon persille, the traditional Burgundian terrine of ham with parsley. 

 

Next came Christine’s amazing boeuf bourguignon and her even more amazing gratin dauphinois.  Mary’s scalloped potatoes are pretty darn good, but Mary assessed these as even better, fluffy and lighter, but still that great richness.  Christine freely shared her recipe, which is basically to use crème fraiche instead of milk and, surprisingly, no cheese!

 

 

Speaking of cheese, she offered a nice selection along with dessert and coffee.

 

 

 

Lunch with Christine at Domaine Drouhin-Laroze is one of those classic French meal experiences that is absolutely an event.  We arrived at 12:30 p.m.  We chatted with Christine for a bit, saw the cellars, discussed her vineyard holdings, talked at the table, anticipated lunch, talked some more, perused the wine list, talked, ordered wines, got more excited, the wines came and Christine opened and poured, we talked about the wines, examined them, tasted, the first course came, we enjoyed and had more conversation, the main course came and we alternated between talking and satisfied chewing, we talked about how we would try the potato recipe at home, we nibbled on cheese, dessert, and sipped coffee.  We departed at 3:30 p.m. after saying our fond goodbyes to Christine.

As with the vineyard experience at Puligny-Montrachet and Chassagne-Montrachet in the previous post, we took a little time to visit the famous vineyards of Gevrey-Chambertin and Chambolle-Musigny on the way back to Magny-les-Villers.

Here you can see a famous image of a vineyard workers’ hut in

Chambertin Clos de Bèze. 

 

Just to the south of Clos de Bèze, separated by a narrow dirt lane, is Chambertin, the most prestigious of all and the vineyard whose name is attached to Gevrey in the village name.  Even though they are side by side, both fairly flat to gently sloping, of similar exposition to the sun, soil differences create a different wine expression and was noted by the monks, thus the vineyards were identified and named separately.

 

Just a short drive of a few minutes down D122 from Gevrey-Chambertin is Bonnes Mares.

On the way out of Chambolle-Musigny we stopped to photograph the vines that were so sparse in vegetation a couple of days ago and which appear in a previous post.  It is amazing what a difference two days makes.

After a lunch like this, neither of us was interested in a big, fancy dinner, so about 8:30 or so in the evening, Mary sliced up a little charcuterie, pear, cherries, and cheese.  That was plenty to finish off the day.

That’s our post for today.  We hope you enjoyed it.  Tomorrow is our last day in Burgundy before we head to Provence.  Keep checking back at Cépage et Cuisine as we continue our France adventure.  In the meantime,

Cheers!

Mary♥Brian