More about Hospices de Beaune

The Hospices de Beaune is less a producer than an institution: a medieval charity hospital that owns some of Burgundy's best vineyards and sells its new wine every November at the most famous charity wine auction in the world.

Nicolas Rolin, chancellor to the Duke of Burgundy, and his wife Guigone de Salins founded the hospital in 1443 to care for the poor, and the first gift of vines followed in 1457. Over the centuries benefactors kept leaving it land, and today it holds about 60 hectares, roughly 85% of them premier and grand cru. Each cuvée is named for the donor whose bequest it comes from, such as Cuvée Baudot or Cuvée Madeleine Collignon.

The Hospices' own team grows and vinifies the wine, but on the third Sunday of November it is sold by the barrel, and the buyer takes home young wine that still needs to be raised. Each barrel goes to an éleveur, often a respected négociant or a top grower, who ages and bottles it and whose name appears on the label.

That makes every Hospices bottle a collaboration, and the same vineyard can taste quite different depending on whose cellar it went to. That's the fun of it: great terroir and a famous winemaker's hand in the glass.