March 20, 2022 in the Château de Clos de Vougeot – the 61^st wine auction of the Hospices de Nuits

The wine auction of Hospices de Nuits-Saint-Georges can be considered the little sister of the famous Hospices de Beaune auction but that still didn’t stop the auction buyers on Sunday from following recent events in Beaune by setting their own new records for the wines of the 2021 vintage. Just like its equivalent in Beaune, this 12-hectare Nuits domaine auctions wine for the benefit of their local hospital and retirement homes.

For this 61^st edition of the wine auction, and for the very first time, total bids exceeded 2 million euros. At €2,486 million (excluding auction costs) this total was up by almost 30% compared to last year’s auction of wines from the 2020 vintage – which had totalled €1.9 million euros. We shouldn’t overlook the fact that last year there were 114 barrels for sale – this year there was a further, modest, reduction to 109 barrels: The 2020 crop had been reduced in volume by the semi-drought conditions of the summer, whereas the 2021 vintage by the April frosts and then having to contain mildew in the early summer – both vintages were described as roughly ‘half-harvests.’

Like the Pièce des Presidents barrel in the Hospices de Beaune wine auction, the Hospices de Nuits also offer a special barrel for the benefit of a chosen charity. This barrel was sold for 41,460 euros – a little down on the 49,380 euros paid for the equivalent lot last year – this year to benefit APF France Handicap, ‘an organisation both for supporting and defending the rights of people with disabilities.‘

This year’s average price per barrel reached a new record of 22,481 euros for the reds – which was a year-on-year increase of almost 35% – and 58,000 euros for the only barrel of white, which more than double the price in 2021.

Pulignacious-Montrachet, Corpeau-Montrachet and Blagny-Montrachet are slowly bracing themselves for next week’s, long-delayed, Tournante Saint Vincent 2021.

Already the difference between Friday and Saturday was obvious in Puligny with more ‘decorations’ visible.

Today, we lunched at Auberge du Vieux Vigneron in Corpeau and so could extract a few stats from Jean Charles Fagot:

• There are 35,000 tickets sold – so these people get access to the special cuvées of the St.Vincent, amongst other things. But if the weather is kind, they are hoping for more than 80,000 visitors!
• To assuage the thirst of these 35k ticket-holders wait 17,000 bottles of the St.Vincent cuvées…
• And just to make sure that your olfactory senses are fully functional you may, from some distance, note Jean Charles’ two stalls selling snails. He’s anticipating selling 3,000 dozen of them! – I asked how much garlic that would require – and he just laughed…

Enjoy if you are going! – www.saint-vincent-tournante-2021.com

Puligny

Puligny

Puligny

Puligny

Corpeau

Puligny

Puligny

Blagny

Blagny