Domaine Faiveley recently celebrated the bicentennial of its founding with an enviable series of events that included a tasting of selected vintages back to 1935, lunch at the domaine, and a glittering gala dinner hosted at the Clos de Vougeot.
The site of the dinner was eminently appropriate, as the domaine is one of the co-owners of the Château du Clos de Vougeot and a founding member of the Confrérie de Chevaliers du Tastevin, which is headquartered there.
Nuits-Saint-George-based négociant Domaine Faiveley is among the best-known names in Burgundy; the house was founded in 1825 and is today the proprietor of more than 120 hectares of vines. Domaine Faiveley is managed today by Eve and Erwan Faiveley, the seventh generation to oversee the operation.
The capstone to the Faiveley festivities last month was the announcement of the donation of a parcel of vines in Clos de Vougeot to the Hospices de Beaune. The Hospices, founded in 1443 as a hospital to care for the sick and the poor, has amassed a lustrous collection of vineyards in the centuries since its founding through donations from grateful vignerons.
Ludivine Griveau, technical director of the Hospices’ vineyard, was delighted to welcome the Faiveley plot to her portfolio of vineyards, which spans over 60 hectares of vines in 86 different climats and produces more than 50 separate wines. The parcel donated by Faiveley covers 0.18 ha (11 rows) in the Baudes Basses section of the Clos. This donation will enable the Hospices to produce three barrels of wine each year that will be called Cuvée François Faiveley. This new acquisition further expands the grand cru holdings of the Hospices in the Côte de Nuits, which also include Clos de la Roche and Mazis-Chambertin. The Hospices will auction its first vintage of the new cuvée in the autumn of 2025.
The Faiveley team will continue to tend the vines for the balance of the 2025 season, although Griveau and her team will harvest the grapes. It is possible that the collaboration will continue into 2026, with decisions made jointly by Ludivine Griveau and Jérôme Flous, the technical director for Domaine Faiveley.
Griveau welcomes the collaboration and donation from Faiveley as both Faiveley and the Hospices use organic methods in the vineyard, and their interests are aligned. The Hospices was certified organic last year, following the brutal 2024 vintage, which was marked by incessant rain and consequent mildew.
Faiveley is set to be certified organic for the 2025 vintage. This work has been implemented steadily since the arrival of Flous in 2007, as the domaine gradually ceased synthetic treatments while beginning to carefully debud the vines and manage the canopy to improve airflow. Eve Faiveley recounts that among the most challenging steps, however, was recruiting highly qualified and experienced staff and keeping them motivated throughout the challenging 2024 vintage.
The difficult work of the organic conversion has been undertaken in market conditions that Faiveley has gingerly described as ‘complex’. It has changed importers in the critical US market at the same time that economic pressures around the world (including the Trump tariffs) have adversely impacted sales. Fortunately, the 2023 vintage has offered both strong quality and abundant supply, although the volumes available in 2024 will be much lower.
‘The volumes of 2023 will permit us to smooth out shipments over the next few months, but the risk is generating tension over the offer (of the 2024s),’ said Eve Faiveley. ‘In the coming year, I will remain prudent but confident. We must adapt to difficult market conditions, but the demand for Burgundy remains strong and our prices must remain consistent.’
