The Art of aging by Albert Bichot:
revealing your Hospice wines in our cellars
After the auction, growing wines through haute-couture and organic aging
Our aim is both simple and ambitious: to respect the identity of the Hospices wines and give them an extra soul through constant attention to detail.
What could be more natural than to take care of the smallest detail when looking after the wines of a winegrowing hospital? Whatever cuvée you buy with Albert Bichot, you can trust us to give you the very best. A detail that's not just a detail: we age all Hospices de Beaune wines organically, continuing the Hospices' sustainable viticulture and their organic certification from the 2024 vintage.
A superb cellar dedicated to ageing, where buyers are welcome
Just after the sale, we collect all the barrels we've bought to bring them in Beaune in a superb vaulted cellar dedicated to the Hospices. Our buyers of full barrels are of course welcome! The ageing phase begins. The aim: to respect the identity of each cuvée and the work of the régisseur, while helping the wines to grow during this period. To bring them to their peak during this slow and patient stage that lasts between 10 to 18 months.
Barrel selection: the quest for superior complexity
Our first key decision concerns the choice of barrels. Sold at the auction in new oak, we believe that in the majority of cases the wine will gain in complexity by being aged in a super precious selection of different barrels. Cyrille Jacquelin, in charge of this delicate mission, will thus combine for each cuvée oak barrels of several origins (forests), with specific light or medium grain level, with different toast levels too, and of different ages (from new oak to 5 years old on average). At the end of the aging (10 to 18 months), we will blend all the barrels together before bottling.
This diversity of barrels obviously requires more work, but it gives our Hospices wines that extra soul that makes all the difference. The more we buy, the more diversity we can have in our choice of barrels. This diversity, which owes nothing to chance, is transformed into aromatic complexity and subtlety in our Hospices wines.
No suprise then that Hospices de Beaune wines that we select and age in our cellars regularly win top-level awards and recognition at major international wine competitions. This is a solid recognition of our expertise and commitment to all things Hospices.
Bâtonnage, racking, topping up the barrels: care for the wines every single minute
Each cuvée is aged with the utmost care and attention. Bâtonnage of the whites, racking at the right moment, topping up, monthly tastings of each barrel: we follow the evolution of each barrel with precision. All wines, whatever their level, receive the same care from the entire cellar team. There is no rule for how long each wine is aged, from 10 to 18 months and anything in between. The vintage effect, the appellation, the evolution of each cuvée over the months...we bottle "when the time is right and the wine is good". It's that simple, so to say.
Bottling and labeling: precision right down to the last moment
The last technical stage is bottling. Here too, constant attention is required. High-level equipment ensures that the wine is bottled in the most natural way. We can, of course, bottle our customers' Hospices in large formats: magnums, jeroboams or mathusalems! We use only the best corks to preserve all the flavors of these great wines entrusted to us.
Finally comes the labelling phase: bottles are dressed with their iconic label, most often personalized with the purchaser's name. They are then delicately placed in beautiful wooden cases bearing both the Domaine's and our company's coat of arms, signalling the dual origins of the Hospices de Beaune wines aged by Albert Bichot.