The Hospices de Beaune

 The wines from the Hospices de Beaune.

The Wine Auction

The sale at auction of the wines of the Hospices de Beaune remains one of the most famous charity events in the world and all wine professionals await this event on the 3^rd Sunday of November.

Since 2005, the firm of Christie's has been faithfully and actively present alongside the Hospices de Beaune, giving this international event the ringing impact it deserves. True, we are talking about an auction, but we are also talking about culture, for the wine of Burgundy is of paramount importance in French cultural life.

Wine from the Hospices de Beaune is Burgundy's earth-blood, for offering to refined, well-informed amateurs : those who know that drinking wine is a way of allowing the history of a piece of land to penetrate one's very being. Buying a barrel of wine frome the Hospices is to merge intimately with this exceptional terroir. As Salvador Dali used to say : "Someone who knows how to taste is no longer just drinking wine, but is tasting secrets".

The secret of the wine of the Hospices is Nature's generosity, which offers an unrivalled bower from which may be exhaled a perfume which is unique in the world. But the secret is also the people who, since 15th century, have followed one another, giving it life and providing it with the means to express all its richness and all is soul, in order to deliver up for your expert evalutation a nectar without equal.

To acquire a wine from the Hospices is also to make a generous, charitable gift, since the proceeds from the Wine Sale are assigned to the running or the Hospices, according to the wish of its fournder, Chancelor Nicolas Rolin.

The Sale proceeds are dedicated to the Hiospices de Beaune caritable activites : improvement of medical equipment and structures, as well as upkeep of historical monuments such as the world-famous Hôtel-Dieu in Beaune. Besides, since 1945, the Hospices have supported each year one or several other charities, represented by celebrities, by granting these causes the sale profits of a wine barrel "pièce des Présidents".

Close your eyes and listen to these words resonating : "Meursault, Corton, Volnay, Pommard, Mazis-Chambertin..." How, having heard these prestigious names, breathed in their perfumes and tasted such treasures could you not allow yourself to be tempted ?

Rabelais wrote : "Wine is the most civiised thing in the world" - so do something civiising, and let yourself to be carried away in the bidding".

The Hospice de Beaune's wines auction by Christie"s in video.