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Hospices de Nuits raises €3.6 million for charity

13 March 2023 By Richard Woodard

The annual Hospices de Nuits wine auction, held yesterday at the Château du Clos de Vougeot, raised a total of €3,603,000, up 45% on last year.

The 62^nd edition of the sale – much smaller than the Hospices de Beaune auction held each autumn, but intent on raising its profile – offered a total of 161 barrels or pièces from the large and excellent-quality 2022 vintage, including one charity pièce sold by the bottle.

Organisers were delighted with the amount raised for the Hospices’ hospital in Nuits-St-Georges, but the average red wine barrel price was fractionally down on last year’s figure of €22,482 – partly a consequence of the much larger 2022 harvest, but also thought to be a reflection of a softening of Burgundy prices after stratospheric growth over the past few years.

The wines were sourced from the Hospices de Nuits’ 12-plus hectares of vines, almost all of them within Nuits-Saint-Georges, with a small holding in Gevrey-Chambertin. All are red, except for a small amount of white wine (three barrels this year) from the Terres Blanches premier cru.

Of the 20 different cuvées created by Hospices de Nuits technical manager Jean-Marc Moron, highlights included three wines sourced from the estate’s premier cru monopole, Les Didiers, and three from Les Saint-Georges, currently seeking to become Nuits-St-Georges’ first grand cru.

The most expensive lot was a barrel of premier cru Les Saint-Georges Cuvée Georges Faiveley, acquired for €55,000 by – appropriately enough – Domaine Faiveley. Another Les Saint-Georges wine, Cuvée des Sires de Vergy, attracted strong bidding up to €48,000 per barrel.

Meanwhile, a special Les Saint-Georges pièce drawn from some of the estate’s oldest vines and named in honour of the Hospices’ first vineyard donor, Hugues Perdrizet, was bought for €40,000 by Albert Bichot.

This year’s charity pièce or Cuvée des Bienfaiteurs, an assemblage of the Hospices’ nine premiers crus, was sold by the bottle and raised €63,630 for the Blousons Roses, a charity that helps the vulnerable throughout France.

The auction attracted strong bidding from individuals, syndicates and négociants, with Bichot, Thibault Liger-Belair, Edouard Delaunay, Boisset and Patriarche prominent among the buyers.

For the fourth year running, the sale was conducted by auctioneer Hugues Cortot of Cortot & Associés, and wine expert Aymeric de Clouet, and was live-streamed online.

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