Hospices de Nuits-St-Georges auction
The 64th Hospices de Nuits-St-Georges auction, held on 9 March.
(Image credit: Copyright Antoine Morfaux)

Bidders drove up the average price-per-barrel at at the 64th Hospices de Nuits-St-Georges Burgundy auction by 41.5% on last year’s event, to €22,422.50. 

That’s close to the all-time record set in 2022, which stands at €22,807, said auction house iDealwine, which hosted the annual sale for the first time on 9 March at the usual venue in the cellars of Château du Clos de Vougeot. 

This year’s auction focused on Burgundy’s young 2024 vintage and iDealwine said total sales from 35.5 barrels, or ‘pièces’, reached €796,000. 

Only a relatively small number of barrels, or ‘pièces’, were produced for this year’s auction due to the small Burgundy 2024 harvest.

The Domaine des Hospices de Nuits-St-Georges, which covers 12.4 hectares, saw its lowest overall yield since 1961. 

Last year’s auction, focusing on the relatively large 2023 vintage, saw 150 pièces go under the hammer. Total sales were higher as a consequence, reaching more than €2m. 

Cyrille Jomand, the auctioneer and CEO of iDealwine, said, ‘We are happy and proud of the result following what was a very low quantity vintage.’

The headline charity pièce brought the total this year to 36.5 barrels and had individually raised €53,900 ‘so far’, iDealwine said earlier this week.

This year’s charity barrel was a white wine for the first time, and specifically: Nuits-St-Georges, Premier Cru Les Terres Blanches. 

Funds raised will go to the Coucou Nous Voilou children’s charity, which was represented at the sale by French actress and comedian Chantal Ladesou and champion figure skater Philippe Candeloro.

A two-bottle case of Nuits-St-Georges Premier Cru from 1955 and 1959  was also donated by Maison Edouard Delaunay to raise additional money for the charity, and was auctioned for €2,000.

Such were the small volumes on offer this year that the Domaine also took the rare step of releasing bottles and magnums from the 2005 and 2017 vintages to add an extra dimension to the auction. These fetched total sales of €60,950.

Guillaume Koch, director of the Hospices Civils de Beaune, which also oversees the Hospices de Nuits auction, said, ‘We are delighted with the auction result! We had hoped for a small rise in the pièce prices, and we had a wonderful surprise with the records.

‘The sale of the bottles and magnums from past vintages allowed a few great wine enthusiasts to indulge.’ 

Chris Mercer
Chris Mercer

Chris Mercer is a Bristol-based freelance editor and journalist who spent nearly four years as digital editor of Decanter.com, having previously been Decanter’s news editor across online and print.

He has written about, and reported on, the wine and food sectors for more than 10 years for both consumer and trade media.

Chris first became interested in the wine world while living in Languedoc-Roussillon after completing a journalism Masters in the UK. These days, his love of wine commonly tests his budgeting skills.

Beyond wine, Chris also has an MSc in food policy and has a particular interest in sustainability issues. He has also been a food judge at the UK’s Great Taste Awards.