Wine: madness in Burgundy at the Hospices de Beaune auction – Boursorama

The 161st Hospices de Beaune auction, which serves as the first indicator of the prices of the great wines of Burgundy, experienced a wind of madness on Sunday, with record prices for a vintage marked by a historically low harvest!

“Absolutely amazing”, summarized François Poher, the director of the Hospices Civils, announcing a partial result of 11.67 million euros (excluding costs) at the end of the charity auctions, the oldest and most famous in the world.

In the end, the total will therefore exceed last year’s sale, with almost half the number of lots.

The highlight of the auction, the “Piece of Charity” or “President’s Piece”, a barrel of Corton Renardes Grand Cru, went to 800,000 euros (excluding fees) against 660,000 last year and far from the previous record, 480,000 euros in 2015, great vintage.

“That’s a real figure! It’s historic,” said actor Pio Marmai who led the session like a professional huckster, alongside Jeanne Balibar.

This year, the profit goes to “Solidarité Femmes”, an associative network dedicated to victims of domestic violence, and to the Institut Curie, for research against breast cancer. Oenogroup, a London-based company specializing in rare wines, won the bid.

With a harvest almost halved due to the vagaries of the weather, only 349 “pieces” of red and white futures, 228-liter barrels corresponding to 288 bottles, were offered to buyers – against 630 last year.

“This 2021 vintage is the image of a year marked by a hostile environment and at the end by the pride of having overcome the difficulties”, according to the director of the Hospices.

The estate which brings together the greatest Burgundy wines over 60 hectares (pommard, volnay, meursault, chassagne-montrachet, corton, pouilly-fuissé, mazis-chambertin …) saw its yields drop “to 14 hl / ha, against Usually 30-35 “, as the stage manager Ludivine Griveau explained.

“The prices will go up,” predicted Hans Berchtold, a Swiss restaurateur who came to taste the wines at the Hospices winery.

This year, this professional from Basel (Switzerland) gave up bidding alone as he has been doing for eight years, to join forces with “two or three friends” and go through a broker in the hope of acquiring one of the lots, ideally, “a Volnay or a Pommard”.

But the offers flew from the start of the sale. The first batches, traditionally Beaune Premier Cru, Cuvée des Dames Hospitalières – named after the nuns who took care of the sick from the founding of the Hospices in 1443 – left between 17,000 and 18,000 euros (excluding fees), against an average price of € 9,680 in 2020.

– “It’s a box” –

“It’s a hit for us!”, Comments an onlooker in the middle of the crowd massed in front of the giant screen installed near the hall where some 500 bidders have flocked, competing with remote clients represented by brokers hanging on their telephone, among which the president of Sotheby’s France, Mario Tavella.

The American house Sotheby’s has resumed this year the auctions held since 2005 by its British competitor Christie’s with the aim of developing its wine market in France.

In 2020, the 630 pieces auctioned had brought in a total of 13.4 million euros (free of charge), an average of around 20,200 euros per barrel. Fifteen years ago, the average price was 4,803 euros.

The profits are intended for the maintenance of the heritage and the modernization of the hospital equipment of the institution founded in the 15th century in the heart of Burgundy.

Beyond their charitable aspect, the Beaune auctions are considered by experts as a price indicator for Burgundy wines.

“We have never sold so many good wines and produced so little”, said before the sale Frédéric Drouhin, president of the Interprofessional Bureau of Burgundy Wines (BIVB). The expected volume for the 2021 vintage will be 900,000 to 950,000 hectoliters against 1.56 million in 2020.

sof / pb