Hospices de Beaune | Wine Auction

Very few have the privilege to experience this centuries’ old wine auction tradition.

The Hospices de Beaune is perhaps the most famous of all wine auctions, with a centuries-long history, beginning in 1443, when the iconic polychromatic-tiled Hôtel-Dieu in central Beaune was built to tend the sick. Over the years, the charitable cause was given vineyards among other donations; today its holding of vines is a glorious 60 hectares.

Lot after lot, every year the Domaine des Hospices’ 50 wines are sold and acquired by lovers of fine Burgundy wines from around the world. The annual auction ritual as we know it today began in 1859 to raise funds for the hospital, and forms the centrepiece of celebrations in Burgundy over the third weekend of November. The proceeds benefit the hospital and other good causes.

The 50 Hospices de Beaune wines from the current vintage put up for auction are sold ‘en primeur’ (as futures). At the auction, the nascent wine has only just been vinified by Ludivine Griveau in the Domaine des Hospices winery. It is a very young, embroynic wine, too young to have delivered all its complexity, but full of the promise of future excitement and potential. Griveau is the first female winemaker in the 473 year viticultural history of the Hospices de Beaune estate, and her wines are hailed as the best ever made at the Hospices.