A collection of Burgundy for the ages

In the summer of 1994, the British wine critic Jancis Robinson visited Vosne-Romanée, some three hours south-east of Paris, to film a documentary about Burgundy for the BBC. ‘This little village might look peaceful enough, but, beneath its rooftops, fierce passions smoulder,’ she says to the camera. ‘This is no ordinary village.’

At one end of the road she points to the ‘Queen of Burgundy’, Lalou Bize-Leroy. Next door is the ‘celebrated’ estate Domaine de la Romanée-Conti. And at the other end is the ‘Pope of Burgundy’, vintner Henri Jayer. ‘These are some of the characters of the extraordinary little village that’s world famous for its bottles to die for.’

The critic goes on to explain how Vosne-Romanée’s most famous wine, Romanée-Conti, had recently begun to change hands for over £1,000 a bottle. Never could she have dreamt that three decades later, the demand for Burgundy would go so stratospheric that certain bottles of Romanée-Conti would sell for six-figure sums at auction.

Around the same time Robinson was making her film, a Frenchman then living in London began putting together one of the great modern collections of Burgundies, buying exceptional vintages upon release from the finest producers of the region.

‘He was really ahead of the curve,’ explains Adam Bilbey, Christie’s Global Head of Wine and Spirits. ‘As a result, he built not only one of the broadest, but one of the finest collections of Burgundy you’re ever likely to see.’

On September 25 and 26 2025, a curated portion of this collection is being offered as The Glorious Cellar of a European Connoisseur — a landmark, two-day, single-owner sale at Christie’s in New York. Over 1000 lots will comprise nearly 8000 bottles, including large formats, with Burgundy making up over half of the collection.

Burgundy’s limestone and clay-rich soils have been producing wine from Pinot Noir grapes for well over 1,000 years. Unlike in Bordeaux, where estates traditionally centred around a grand château, Burgundy’s vineyards traditionally belonged to the people who worked them, passing from one generation of winemaker to the next. Since 1936, they’ve been organised into four tiers of quality: Bourgogne, Village, Premier Cru and at the very top, Grand Cru, which represents less than two per cent of Burgundy’s total production.

Up until the second half of the 20th century, most of Burgundy’s vine-growers would sell their grapes to merchants. From the 1960s, individual domaines started bottling their own wine, sometimes stamping it the product of a single vineyard and creating just a few hundred bottles each year. By the 1990s, an international boom for these wines was underway, and, as Robinson points out in her show, the winemakers prospered considerably.

The owner of the bottles coming to Christie’s had his love of Burgundy initially sparked as a youth, by a bottle from the 1950s discovered in his grandmother’s cellar in Paris. ‘That was a revelation: the haunting cherry perfume, the pale brilliant colour, I suddenly discovered the pleasure wine could bring,’ he explains.

That intrigue was stoked into a passion following a chance meeting with a collector. ‘A friend of mine invited me to spend Christmas with his parents in Worcestershire. At the end of the weekend his dad said to me “I noticed that you enjoyed this wine. When I started my first job, I put a bit of my salary aside every month and used it to buy a couple of cases of wine. Later, I’d sell one to finance the next purchase.” He was responsible for me buying wine in a vaguely systematic way.’

‘But, by the time I started collecting Burgundy in the early 1990s, if you got a case of 12 you were king of the world. If you got a case of six you were very happy. You certainly didn’t have two cases of anything.’

As he moved around the world for work, he started to store his growing collection in a guarded vault inside a former mine in Wiltshire. Crucially, after reaching the racks, his wines haven’t moved since — until now.

Some of the highlights from the 1,000-plus lots being offered at Christie’s include half-cases of Domaine Armand Rousseau Chambertin Grand Cru from 2009 and Domaine Georges Roumier Bonnes-Mares Grand Cru from 2005, as well as three magnums of Domaine Georges Mugneret-Gibourg Ruchottes-Chambertin Grand Cru from 2009.

There are also several lots comprising bottles from Domaine de la Romanée-Conti, including Richebourg Grand Cru from 2002; La Tâche Grand Cru from 2011; Grands Échézeaux Grand Cru from 2011; and Romanée-Saint-Vivant Grand Cru from 2009. There is also an exceptionally rare magnum of Romanée-Conti Grand Cru from 2005.

‘When I started, I didn’t have infinite means and wines from DRC were already expensive even then. I think you could actually describe my Burgundy buying policy as “Anything but DRC”, just because it was too expensive. But over the years I have enjoyed a few, and I must say, there is a reason why they are as revered as they are,’ says the collector.

The sale also contains a number of notable white wines from Burgundy, typically produced from Chardonnay grapes. ‘The wine merchant Hilary Gibbs is responsible for my interest in white Burgundy,’ the collector explains. ‘She used to get out a map and we would sample wines from different elevations. I remember being blown away by how good the wine was, but also by how you could move 100 yards and, despite changing growers, there was more similarity between Premier Cru and Grand Cru wines at the same altitude than two Premier Cru wines at different altitudes.’

Some of the white Burgundy highlights include a half-case of Domaine Arnaud Ente Meursault Clos des Ambres from 2010; a single bottle of Domaine des Comtes Lafon Montrachet Grand Cru from 2013; a magnum of Domaine Ramonet Montrachet Grand Cru from 2006; and three magnums of Domaine Roulot Meursault “A Mon Plaisir” Tesson from 2012.

‘Of the wines that I’ve taken to people’s dinner tables, the ones that have caused the biggest surprise have been from Roulot. If you bring a bottle of DRC everyone knows it’s great and expectations are up there. For a long time people didn’t rate Roulot highly, but it has this remarkable capacity to age and become fantastic.’

‘I like to discover things that aren’t on the radar,’ continues the collector. ‘Whether it’s vintages that aren’t lauded or producers that aren’t famous yet but you happen to try one at its sweet spot, and you go “That’s really great.”’

So how would he suggest new collectors approach their research? ‘You learn through trial and error, but with Burgundies that could get quite expensive. Go to tastings. You learn so much more from verticals (sampling different vintages of the same vineyard) and horizontals (sampling the same vintage from different producers) than you do from having one bottle every day.’

The collector adds, ‘The Holy Grail, though, is being invited on a vineyard tour, which I’ve been lucky enough to do. When you meet the growers in Burgundy you really begin to see links between their personalities and the style of their wine.’

‘This owner’s encyclopaedic knowledge and passion for Burgundy really makes this collection truly stand out,’ says Bilbey. ‘Coupled with what I would class as impeccable provenance, it makes this sale a unique opportunity for both seasoned and new collectors to acquire iconic names as well as lesser-known gems.’