The Saint-Vincent Tournante comes to Volnay on January 30 and 31, 2027, and for the first time in its history you cannot simply turn up. Burgundy’s winter wine festival moves to a different village every year; the 83rd edition lands in a village of just over 200 people, so entry is capped at 23,000 visitors a day and every ticket is bought online in advance. Here is how the weekend works, what the tasting kit gets you and where to sleep.
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- Dates
- Saturday, January 30 and Sunday, January 31, 2027
- Venue
- The village of Volnay, Côte de Beaune, about 10 minutes from Beaune
- Hours
- 7:30 a.m. to 6:00 p.m. both days, per the Beaune tourist office
- Tickets
- Online only, from November 12, 2026 at noon: tasting kit €25, access ticket free, children’s kit €5. Nothing is sold on the day
- Who can attend
- Anyone with a ticket for that day, up to 23,000 people a day, children included
- What’s poured
- Volnay Village and Volnay Premier Cru in seven themed cellars, with vintages including 2025, 2023, 2022 and 2020
In this article
What the Saint-Vincent Tournante is
Saint Vincent is the patron saint of winegrowers, and his feast day falls on January 22. In Burgundy the celebration “rotates” (tournante): each year a different village, or a small group of them, hosts the whole region’s winegrowers for a weekend at the end of January. The 2026 edition, in the Maranges villages at the southern tip of the Côte de Beaune, drew 60,000 visitors and sold 30,000 tasting kits, according to the Cité des Climats et Vins de Bourgogne.
It is a village party before it is a tasting. Streets are dressed for weeks by volunteers, the mutual-aid societies of the wine villages parade with their banners, there is a church service and a ceremony of new members, and only then do the cellars open. Volnay estimates it needs 700 volunteers to run the weekend, more than three times its permanent population.
This is only the third time Volnay has hosted it, and the timing is deliberate: 2027 marks 90 years of the Volnay appellation, which is red only and entirely Pinot Noir. With about 215 hectares of vines, a large share of them classified Premier Cru, Volnay is roughly 0.8% of the Burgundy vineyard, and the organizers want the weekend to show the appellation as a whole rather than any single domaine.
Saint-Vincent Tournante 2027: dates and tickets
This is the part that changes everything. On November 5, 2026, the organizing committee confirmed that Volnay will run the first Saint-Vincent Tournante with controlled access, as Info-Beaune reported. The cap of 23,000 people a day was set with the state services on the basis of one square meter per person in the streets open to the public, and it counts everyone: residents, their guests, volunteers and organizers included.
| Ticket | Price | What it includes |
|---|---|---|
| Tasting kit | €25 | Access wristband, glass engraved for the 2027 edition, glass holder, map and a booklet for the seven themed cellars |
| Access ticket | Free | Entry to the village for walking, the parade and the decorations, with no tasting |
| Children’s kit | €5 | Entry plus the syrup bar |
Sales open on Thursday, November 12, 2026 at noon French time, only on the official Saint-Vincent de Volnay website. Three rules matter more than the prices. Every ticket is valid for one day only, Saturday or Sunday, so a two-day visit means two tickets. A free access ticket is still compulsory, even for a child or a friend who only wants to watch the parade. And no tickets will be sold in Volnay on January 30 or 31.
To shorten the lines at the gates, the organizers plan early kit pickup days in Volnay on January 18, 19 and 20. If you are already in Burgundy that week, it is worth the detour.
What to expect in Volnay
The tasting happens in seven themed cellars spread through the village, pouring Volnay Village and Volnay Premier Cru. The wines are not bottles from individual estates: the growers pooled grapes and wines to make shared cuvées, so you taste the appellation rather than a list of names. Several vintages are planned, including 2025, 2023, 2022 and 2020, and the vice-president of the committee has hinted at a cuvée from “the previous century” without saying more.
Around the cellars, the program follows tradition: the parade of the mutual-aid societies on a route of more than six kilometers around the village, religious ceremonies, the induction of new members and the opening of the cellars. Add brass bands, artists, craftspeople showing their trades and around fifteen food stands. A €3 “mischievous quiz” sends you around the village solving riddles, with proceeds going to ABC Hôpitaux France, the hospital-clown charity, and a prize draw every day at 4:00 p.m.
Dress for a long day outdoors in late January: warm layers, waterproof shoes and something to hold the glass when you need both hands. You will walk a few kilometers on narrow village streets.
Getting there: shuttles, not cars
The organizers are blunt: do not drive to Volnay. The RD73 through the village is expected to close from Friday evening to Monday morning, and there will be no parking near the village. Car parks will be set up in Beaune, Meursault and Chagny, with shuttles run by the coach company Girardot to the edge of Volnay. The first departures are announced from 7:30 a.m. on Saturday and 9:30 a.m. on Sunday, and you will need to show your Saint-Vincent booking to board. A fare of €6 was mentioned at the November presentation; the details, along with the security plan, are due in early December.
Beaune is the practical base: it has the train station closest to the shuttle stops, and the most hotels within reach of the car parks. If you are coming from Paris, the usual route is a TGV to Dijon and a regional train on to Beaune. The Beaune tourist office’s festival FAQ will carry the shuttle timetables once they are published.
The banquets in Beaune
The festival starts before the last weekend of January, with three banquets in the Bastion des Hospices de Beaune. The first, called “Saint-Vincent,” falls on Friday, January 22, the saint’s feast day, with first call going to Volnay residents, winegrowers and the organizers’ circle. The two open to the public are “Héritage vivant” on Friday, January 29 and “Élégance rare” on Saturday, January 30, at €350 per person.
Each dinner is seven courses with seven wines, and each has a different chef, still unannounced in early November. They are selling anyway: 700 of the 900 seats were taken before the menus were published. If a banquet is the reason for your trip, book it before your hotel, through the banquets page of the official site. Elegant dress is recommended.
Where to stay for the Saint-Vincent Tournante
Volnay is a village of vineyards and cellars, not hotels, and its streets close to traffic for the weekend. Book a room in Beaune, the town with a shuttle car park, the train station and the widest choice of hotels. Meursault and Chagny, the two other car parks, are quieter options with fewer rooms.
We have not yet published a guide to hotels in Burgundy, so the links below open Expedia’s own search. The page opens on sample dates: set it to Friday, January 29 through Sunday, January 31, 2027 to see what is left for the festival weekend.
Check Beaune hotels on Expedia →
Book it
If Beaune is full, stay in Dijon
Dijon has more rooms and the TGV from Paris, with regional trains on to Beaune and the shuttle car park.
What else to do in Burgundy that weekend
The festival covers Saturday and Sunday, which leaves Friday and Monday for the rest of the Côte. In Beaune, a guided visit of the Maison Champy cellars with a tasting runs about an hour and a half, from $33 per person on GetYourGuide; check that it runs on your dates, since winter schedules are shorter. For something more focused, a private tasting of Burgundy wines in Beaune lasts an hour and 45 minutes and starts from $67 per person on Viator, where it is rated 4.9/5 across 82 reviews.
Browse Beaune wine tastings on GetYourGuide →
If you can travel earlier in the season, Beaune’s November weekend is the other big date on the Burgundy calendar: the Fête des Grands Vins de Bourgogne pours every appellation of the region in one hall, and the Hospices de Beaune wine auction follows on the Sunday. The Saint-Vincent committee will be at both, from November 13 to 15, 2026, to answer questions about the Volnay weekend.
How to plan the Volnay weekend
Put the dates in order. Buy your Saint-Vincent Tournante tickets on November 12, choosing Saturday or Sunday; reserve a banquet if you want one; then book the hotel, then the train. In 2026, 40,000 of the 60,000 visitors came on the Saturday, so a Sunday ticket is the calmer choice if you have the flexibility. Plan to taste with water and food between cellars, and leave the car at the hotel for the whole weekend.
If you would rather keep driving after the festival, pick up a rental car on Monday, once the tastings are over. Our guide to renting a car for a wine trip covers what to check before you rent, including the drink-driving limits in France.
Book it
Staying in Burgundy after the Saint-Vincent weekend? A rental car makes it easy to explore the Côte at your own pace.
Rent a car from Beaune, filtered and ready. Pick it up on Monday, when the roads reopen.
Prices are indicative and set by our booking partners.
