Australians have a continuing love affair with Burgundy

Australian wine lovers can’t get enough of fine Burgundies with with sales volumes up 13.3% and value up 26.1% in 2025, bringing the market close to record levels.

The Bourgogne Wine Board will continue its three-year communications campaign in Australia with the second chapter of the ‘Take a Closer Look’ campaign: inviting trade, media, and consumers to deepen their exploration of Bourgogne wines.

Building on a first series of events in Sydney in year one, Melbourne is in the spotlight for 2026 as the campaign encourages Australians to venture further off the beaten path, experience Bourgogne wines differently, and uncover the diversity that exists within and beyond the region’s most familiar names. 

Take a Closer Look is billed as an invitation to reconnect with “the shared foundations of the Bourgogne wine range: emotion, experience, terroir, know-how and authenticity”.

Through tastings, trade activations, consumer events and more, the second year of the campaign creates opportunities to engage with a new generation of committed winegrowers and their iconic wines. 

The focus is on producers that are "reshaping perceptions of Bourgogne while remaining deeply anchored in their places of origin".

Australia is Bourgogne’s 14th largest export market by volume (17th by value). 

Renewed growth is driven primarily by Crémant de Bourgogne (up more than 7% in volume and up 11% in value), alongside strong performance from white wines overall (up nearly 16% in volume and 4.3% in value). 

Chablis continues to stand out, reaching double-record levels with growth of 23.6% in volume and 22.4% in value.

At the same time, Village appellations from the Côte Chalonnaise and Mâconnais have doubled their export volumes (Villages from the Mâconnais was up by 110% in volume compared to 2024, and white wines from the Côte Chalonnaise up by 168%), while Mâcon wines are up 43% in volume.

“With the second year of Take a Closer Look, our ambition is to go deeper - to highlight the diversity of Bourgogne wines and show how accessible, expressive and relevant they are today," says Anne Moreau, president of the Bourgogne Wine Board's Communication Commission. 

The Take a Closer Look campaign will offer a trade tasting and  masterclass in Melbourne on June 2, a trade-only webinar training session in late July and the second edition of Chablis Week: a promotion of Chablis wines across select Merivale venues (date TBC). 

Wine auction rakes in millions

King's College - part of the University of Cambridge - has a history that dates back to 1441.

The college sits beside the River Cam in the centre of the city and was founded by King Henry VI.

Alumni include poet Rupert Brooke. mathematician Alan Turing and writers EM Forster, Salman Rushdie and Patrick White, along with famous wine writer Hugh Johnson. 

The lucky folk who study here also have access to one of the most extraordinary wine cellars in Britain.

A collection of rare Burgundies from the cellars fetched £1,365,125 in a Christie’s auction this week - that is over $AU 2 million.

The ‘Generations of Jayer’ collection included 42 lots from the Burgundy vineyards of Henri Jayer and his nephew Emmanuel Rouget.

A 12-bottle case of Grand Cru Henri Jayer for Georges Jayer, Echézeaux 1999 from the Côte de Nuits led the way, selling for £100,000 at the London auction, Decanter reported.

The cellars lie deep inside a labyrinth of dark, cold vaults beneath King’s College. They are said to contain more than 50,000 bottles.

King Henry VI granted its students an annuity of "one tun of French wine", the equivalent of 256 gallons.

Jayer was dubbed the ‘godfather of Burgundy’ after pioneering a range of key innovations in the region. He believed that low yields were the foundation of truly great wines, and resisted the use of chemicals in vineyards.

Christie’s international director of wine, Tim Tiptreee MW, once described Jayer's wines as "certainly among the finest I have ever tasted, particularly the Richebourg, Echézeaux and Cros Parantoux".