It is a Mecca for Burgundy wine lovers around the world. The Hospices de Beaune wine charity auction, the holy grail for the planet’s greatest wine lovers, did not set a new record on Sunday, due to a market slowdown, but achieved the third best result in their history, thanks mainly to Asian dynamism.
The sale raised total revenues of 18.384 million euros (excluding costs), well short of the peak reached in 2022 (29 million euros). Nevertheless, this result remains the third best result in the history of the auction, which was born in 1859, higher than last year (13.94 million euros) and 2018 (13.97 million euros).
“This was an extraordinary sale,” said Guillaume Koch, director of Hospices de Beaune, closing out nearly six hours of bidding. The sale mainly benefited from continued dynamism in Asian markets, despite concerns weighing on China, whose economy is slowing.
It was the Chinese who won the “charity item”, which was the featured item in the auction, through Maison François Martenot in Burgundy. This item, as a 228-liter cask is called in Burgundy, sold for 400,000 euros, well short of 2022’s record of 810,000 euros, but higher than last year’s price of 360,000 euros.
This year, “six new cities” around the world took part in a program of 24 tastings organized to satisfy buyers’ tastes: Abu Dhabi, Bangkok, Copenhagen, Jakarta, Madrid and Sao Paulo, said Marie-Anne Ginoux, general director of Sotheby’s France, operator of the sale.
32 countries were represented among the 700 potential buyers gathered in the sales room. “A record number,” according to Marie-Anne Ginoux.
Asia is improving the decline of the United States wine market
The auction is specifically focused on emerging markets in Asia. “South Korea, Thailand, Vietnam and India have enormous potential,” says South Korea’s Jeannie Cho Lee, who was recently hired as a Sotheby’s consultant for Hospitals that are witnessing Asia’s rapid development.
“Burgundy exports have soared in Asia, particularly in China where they tripled from 2017 to 2024, while Bordeaux exports have halved since 2010-2012,” Jeannie Cho Lee underlined.
“The rich Chinese have stock of Bordeaux, but less of Burgundy, but they have to have stock in their cellars,” explains Gina Hu, a buyer in Beaune on behalf of Chinois. The openness to the world is a response to the concerns currently weighing on the markets.
“The global climate is tense,” explains Anne-Laure Helfrich, marketing director of Grands Chais de France, a leading French wine exporter whose home is Burgundy, François Martenot. “The market has a tendency to become depressed,” stressed Laurent Delaunay, president of the Comité Bourgogne, which represents the regional wine industry, citing the United States in particular.
Trump’s tariffs hurt sales
“For the first time in a long time, Burgundy sales declined in August” in the United States, he said, blaming “the first consequence of American tax increases.”
The wines for sale in Beaune, from primeurs, will be delivered in June 2027, after being stored on site. Until then, Donald “Trump can still change his mind,” said one expert with a smile.
As a showcase of global luxury, these sales were also charitable gatherings as the proceeds went to the Hospital which was financed by donations made over the centuries, mainly in the form of vines, hence their nickname “winemaking hospitals”.
In addition to this main work, a barrel, a “charity coin”, traditionally reserved for other charity work, was donated to the association Enfance et handicap en Côte-d’Or (Ehco) and the Robert-Debré Child Brain Institute.
The godfathers of this association – DJ Martin Solveig, actors Vincent Lacoste and Alice Taglioni and director Cédric Klapisch – were invited to Beaune to stake their bets.
