‘Exciting’ wines expected at Hospices sale

The annual Hospices de Beaune auction this November looks set to feature both “exciting” but also plentiful wines according to Jasper Morris MW.

After years of ups and downs (the ups being many good quality vintages, the downs being sometimes cruelly small volumes) 2017 in the Côte d’Or at least has proven to be kind to the region.

‘The weather has finally smiled on Burgundy,” said Morris at a tasting of wines from the Hospices in London this week.

Reports from the BIVB have stated that volumes are expected to be “back to normal” this year and Morris’s own report on the vintage stated that yields for the red wines in the Hospices’s vineyards were 40-42 hectolitres per hectare and 48-50hl/ha for the whites, “generous but well within the permitted maximum for the year,” he said.

Good weather throughout the growing season meant there was very little rot and, even at this early stage, Morris said the wines were, “looking exciting”.

He added that as the size of the harvest was so good it was also unlikely that prices at the auction would go up either.

“This will be an excellent year to buy some well-priced wines,” he said adding, however, that a new addition to the Hospices’s portfolio, a single barrel of Puligny Montrachet, was likely to be a possible exception.

The Hospices de Beaune sale will take place on Sunday 19 November. Last year’s sale realised a total of €8.4 million.