Fête des Grands Vins de Bourgogne 2026: How to Attend

The Fête des Grands Vins de Bourgogne is the one weekend of the year when every Burgundy appellation is poured under a single roof. On November 13 and 14, 2026, the Palais des Congrès in Beaune hosts the 153rd edition: growers, négociants and cooperatives at long circular counters, a glass in your hand, and the Hospices de Beaune auction one day later. Here is how the tickets work, what to taste first and where to sleep.

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What the Fête des Grands Vins de Bourgogne is

Burgundy is a region of small cellars and short appointments. Most domaines farm a few hectares split across several villages, many have no tasting room at all, and a visitor who wants to compare a Chablis, a Pommard and a Mercurey normally needs three days and a car. The Fête des Grands Vins de Bourgogne turns that around: for two days the whole region comes to Beaune and sets up in one hall.

It is also the oldest wine fair in the region. It began in the late 19th century as the Exposition Générale des Vins de Bourgogne, a trade show for the négociants of Beaune, and took its current name in 2008. The organizer today is the CAVB, the confederation of Burgundy’s appellations and winegrowers, and the purpose has not changed much: to show every appellation side by side, from the regional Bourgogne and Crémant to the village wines and the Grands Crus of the Côte de Nuits and Côte de Beaune.

That scope is the reason to go. According to the Burgundy Wine Board’s classification page, the region has 84 protected appellations: 7 regional, 44 village and 33 Grand Cru. Nowhere else will you find all of them open on the same afternoon, poured by the people who made them.

Fête des Grands Vins de Bourgogne 2026: dates and tickets

The 153rd Fête des Grands Vins de Bourgogne runs on Friday, November 13 and Saturday, November 14, 2026, at the Palais des Congrès on avenue Charles de Gaulle, just outside the old town. The dates and hours below come from the official festival site.

Tickets for 2026 are sold through the organizer’s online box office, in day and two-day versions. The 2026 prices are shown only inside the booking widget, so we have not reproduced them here. For reference, at the 2024 edition a one-day ticket cost €28, a two-day pass with the tasting glass €50, and students and wine professionals paid €18 without the glass. Tickets are not refundable unless you add the cancellation insurance offered at checkout.

One thing to know before you plan the evening: La Paulée, the Saturday dinner where every table brings bottles to share, is already full for 2026. The organizer closed bookings well before the event, which tells you something about how early this weekend fills up.

What to expect at the Palais des Congrès

The hall is organized by tasting stations rather than by exhibitor booths. At the 2025 edition there were 15 circular counters and close to 3,000 different wines, according to the local paper Info Beaune; the year before, the count was around 4,000 references and more than 7,000 visitors. With a ticket you get the glass, the run of the stations and a wristband that lets you step out for lunch in town and come back.

Three thousand wines is not a plan, so make one. A good order is to start in the north with Chablis and the Grand Auxerrois, cross the Côte de Nuits from Marsannay to Nuits-Saint-Georges, then the Côte de Beaune whites, and finish south in the Côte Chalonnaise and the Mâconnais, where the prices drop and the value climbs. Spit generously: road-safety teams hand out breathalyzers in the hall for a reason.

On Saturday, from 10:30 a.m. to 5:30 p.m., the École des Vins de Bourgogne runs short tasting workshops of about 15 minutes for groups of up to 12. They are the quickest way to understand how a village wine differs from a Premier Cru from the same slope, and they are included in the entry. In 2025 the hall also sold simple food, from gougères to charcuterie boards and sandwiches, so you do not have to leave to eat.

Friday afternoon is the shorter session. Saturday has the workshops and the full day, but it is also when the weekend crowd for the Hospices sale arrives in Beaune, so if you only have one session, go early on Saturday morning.

The weekend around it: the Hospices de Beaune sale

The Fête is the first act of a three-day weekend. On Sunday, November 15, 2026, the Hospices de Beaune hold their 166th wine auction, the charity sale of barrels from the vineyards bequeathed over the centuries to Beaune’s medieval hospital. The Beaune tourist office describes the sale itself as reserved for trade professionals, but the town around it is open to everyone: a funfair, a gourmet market, folk parades, gala dinners and special tastings in the cellars of the négociants and at the Domaine des Hospices.

For a visitor, the two events fit together naturally. Taste the whole region at the Palais des Congrès on Friday or Saturday, then spend Sunday walking between cellar doors in the old town while the auction runs. If you are choosing between the Fête and a private cellar visit, there is no contest on this weekend: the Fête gives you breadth, and with the auction in town the domaines have their hands full.

Where to stay for the Fête des Grands Vins de Bourgogne

Book early. For the festival dates Expedia lists about 190 hotels, guesthouses and rentals in Beaune, and this is the busiest weekend of the town’s year. The ideal is to stay inside the ring of ramparts, from where both the Palais des Congrès and the auction weekend are on foot, and to drive nowhere at all.

If you want a vineyard view rather than a town square, look at the villages just outside Beaune on the Côte: Pommard, Volnay, Savigny-lès-Beaune and Meursault all have small hotels and rooms in domaines. You will need a taxi or a designated driver for the evenings, though, so arrange the evening ride before you book the room.

Check Beaune hotels for the festival weekend on Expedia →

What else to do in Burgundy that weekend

The Fête takes care of breadth. For depth, add a half day in the vineyards, ideally on Friday morning before the public session opens. GetYourGuide lists 39 wine tastings and winery tours around Beaune, from a 90-minute guided visit of a négociant’s cellars at about $35 to full-day tours of the Côte de Nuits and Côte de Beaune with more than a dozen wines, from about $331 per person. A bike tour through the vineyards, at around $93 for three hours, is the most local way to spend a dry November morning.

Browse Beaune wine tastings on GetYourGuide →

If you are coming from Dijon, many tours start there instead, and the Dijon wine tours on GetYourGuide include half-day runs down the Route des Grands Crus that bring you back in time for an afternoon at the Palais des Congrès. If organic and biodynamic Burgundy is what you came for, our guide to organic vs biodynamic vs natural wine explains what the labels on the counters mean.

Past editions

2025, 152nd edition (November 14 and 15). 84 appellations and nearly 3,000 wines on 15 circular stations, Saturday workshops by the École des Vins de Bourgogne, and the Paulée on Saturday night.

2024, 151st edition (November 15 and 16). Around 4,000 references and more than 7,000 visitors over two days. A day ticket cost €28 and the two-day pass €50 with the glass.

Fête des Grands Vins de Bourgogne 2027: what we know

Nothing official yet. The fair always falls on the Friday and Saturday before the Hospices de Beaune auction, which is held on the third Sunday of November, but the 2027 dates have not been announced and we will not guess them. We will update this page after the 2026 edition with what was poured and what to book for next year. If this is your first big wine festival in Europe, our guide to Merano WineFestival, held one week earlier in South Tyrol, shows how a different festival handles the same crowd; and if you are continuing west, private cellar tours in Bordeaux are the natural next stop.

Related reading

Merano WineFestival 2026: A Visitor’s Guide to the Kurhaus Private Cellar Tours in Bordeaux: 8 Trips You Can Book DOur Editorial Methodology