Christie's wine department is marking six decades in business with a landmark consignment: more than 400 lots drawn straight from the private cellars of Burgundy's Maison Joseph Drouhin. The online sale runs from 3 to 17 November and spans over sixty years of the family's winemaking, from mature Burgundy vintages to recent releases and bottlings from its Oregon outpost, Domaine Drouhin Oregon.

Provenance is the selling point. The wines have been kept in the Drouhin family's own historic cellars, and the family described parting with them as an act carried out with difficulty but also immense pleasure, calling the bottles family memories shaped vintage by vintage. Edwin Vos, Christie's senior international director and head of collections for wine and spirits, called the sale a fitting milestone for the department's 60th anniversary.

The headline lots lean Burgundian. A jeroboam of Musigny 1978 carries the top estimate at £12,000–17,000, while Chambertin-Clos de Bèze is offered at £2,000–2,800 a bottle. A jeroboam of Vosne-Romanée Les Petits Monts 2009 from Véronique Drouhin's private vineyard is estimated at £1,600–2,200. Large formats feature heavily: a Musigny 2024 jeroboam (£4,000–5,000), a Montrachet Marquis de Laguiche 2006 salmanazar (£1,100–2,200) and a Beaune Clos des Mouches Blanc 2009 (£1,600).

The American side of the family business is represented too, including a Domaine Drouhin Oregon Pinot Noir Dundee Hills 1990 estimated at £300–400. With large-format Burgundy and six decades of cellar-direct stock, the sale tests collector appetite for producer-direct provenance at a moment when the fine-wine market has been rewarding scarcity and story as much as score.