Photo-DR-Hospices-de-Beaune
The Hospices de Beaune are hitting hard this year. The 2023 charity Barrel, which will be sold this Sunday, November 19 during the traditional Beaune auctions, was designed in a most unusual wood. Its sale will be sponsored by a particularly popular French actor.
Every year, the Hospices de Beaune offer, among their hundreds of wines put up for auction, a rather special barrel: the charity piece, a 228 liter barrel sold not for the benefit of the Beaune hospital, but in favor of ‘a different charitable cause every year.
For this 2023 edition, the barrel in question was made from oak… which will be used to repair the spire of Notre-Dame de Paris! The cathedral, partially destroyed in 2019 following a fire, benefited from the donation of Bernard d’Harcourt, a forester in Sarthe, who offered one of his oak trees, more than 200 years old…
A famous French Actor to sponsor the auction
“15.5m of this tree will make it possible to rebuild the spire of the cathedral,” he announces. “But there was 3.5m left unused. We thought we had to find a use for them. This is how we offered this wood to the Hospices de Beaune, in order to make a barrel.” Following this donation of raw material, two other volunteers took over: the Barraud staveworks, in Charente, which cut from pieces of trunk into staves, and the Burgundian cooperage Cadus, which assembled these staves into barrels.
This extraordinary setting will host a wine that is no less unusual: a Mazis-Chambertin grand cru. The whole will be sold to benefit the cause of aging well, and in particular two associations: the Foundation for Medical Research (FRM) and the Research Initiative for Healthy Longevity (IRLB) association. And to host this sale, a renowned sponsor: the actor Thierry Lhermitte. To attend this sale, meet on Sunday November 19, 2023 in front of the Halles de Beaune.
