If you write about wine long enough, there are certain brands with which you become very comfortable in ordering or recommending without pause, regardless of the wine and its place on the hierarchical pecking order. Drouhin is one of them for me, possibly because I’ve met the very hands-on family members many times and because I’ve had countless bottles of Drouhin wines, both its estate and négociant wines. Looking for an everyday white Burgundy for a weekday lunch, I picked the Mâcon Chardonnay at a very reasonable price and wasn’t disappointed. Not a “great" wine, but a very enjoyable one with lightly honeyed notes, though not sweet, to go along with the apples, a few nice but not dominant barrel flavors, a good, intense finish though not as crisp as the wine’s northern cousins.
Joseph Drouhin, Mâcon-Villages (Burgundy, France) 2020
By Roger Morris