En Primeur, Negociants, Courtiers: How the unique Bordeaux Wine System of selling Bordeaux wine as futures or En Primeur works is explained.
All the top Bordeaux wine producers sell their wines En Primeur. In fact, they sell the majority of the wine En Primeur, which is also known as futures. That means the wines are sold in barrel, several months after the harvest and long before the wines are available in bottle.
This system has been in place in Bordeaux since the early 1600s. The negociant system is a good part of the reason Bordeaux became the world’s most important and collectible wine region. The Dutch were indispensable in the creation of Bordeaux. Aside from draining the swamps, they were some of the first negociants.
The History of the negociant system and Bordeaux.
The negociants were directly responsible for the increase in production, exportation, and promotion of Bordeaux wine.
At first, Bordeaux wines were sold with only the name Bordeaux on the bottles. By the late 1600’s specific regions and brands began developing allowing discerning consumers to choose which Bordeaux vineyard, or appellation they preferred.
Haut Brion, Margaux, Lafite, and Latour were the first brands to develop name recognition. Slowly, buyers started to look for wines from specific communes. Once they began to recognize, or appreciate the differences, what we know of today as the Second Growths were the next brands to gain a following. For all this to happen, the need for courtiers and negociants and was born.
The earliest negociants date all the way back to 1620, starting with the Dutch firm, Beyerman. This quickly expanded in the early 1700s with the founding of several new companies that remain in business today. Some of these firms have more than 350 years of experience in the business; Nathaniel Johnston in 1734, Schroder and Schyler started in Bordeaux in 1738, along with Thomas Barton and the Lawton family who were all early pioneers in Bordeaux.
At first, the negociants offered all types of retail and brokering services, including some food and agricultural productions. In time, the negociants focused on selling only Bordeaux wine.
Originally, how the system worked was quite simple. As far back as the early 18th century, the owners of the chateau tended the vineyard, made the wine, and placed it in barrel. The negociants handled the rest of the job from aging the wine, and bottling, to sales and distribution.
Keep in mind, the chateau owners were all wealthy and many were members of the royal family. The thought of having to personally sell their production could have been viewed as unseemly at the time from the chateau owners’ point of view. Hiring someone to take care of the mundane commercial aspect of a wine-producing chateau was exactly what they needed.
There was perhaps an even more important need for the negociant system, making wine, and maintaining the chateau and vineyards in good shape was an extremely costly undertaking.
The system where the negociants agreed to buy the wine in advance of bottling and sales provided instant funding allowing the owners to maintain the vineyards and wine-making operations going. The most powerful negociants soon became the unofficial bank for the chateau owners.
How the negociant system became part of Bordeaux.
The Bordeaux system remains unique. Because the top chateaux only sell their wine to the negociants, Bordeaux became the only wine-producing area without any need for direct customer interaction with the chateau and the owners. Because there was no wine to buy, there was no need to meet the ordinary wine drinkers.
The royal, as well as wealthy vineyard owners, discovered another method allowing them to run a commercial enterprise while avoiding contact with the masses. That is another reason the negociant system flourished.
The creation of the 1855 Classification might have started out as a simple request from the French government. But quickly, it became the best marketing tool the world has ever seen! The purpose of the classification was to promote Bordeaux wine and inform consumers which wines were the best to buy and guide them as to how much to pay. To do this, something simple needed to be created. Thus, the 1855 Classification was born!
How did the 1855 Classification come about? Similar to the World Fairs we hold today, The Exposition Universelle de Paris was the perfect opportunity for France to place on display the best of everything it had to offer for the entire world to see, including wine of course.
This was what Napoleon III wanted to accomplish in 1855. The Gironde Chamber of Commerce ordered an official classification to promote the now-famous wines of the Bordeaux appellation. Even in those early days, Bordeaux was considered the world’s most important wine region. The Chamber of Commerce requested that the Wine Brokers Union (negociants) of Bordeaux develop the classification system we all know today.
By putting together a group of known negociants and brokers, their efforts morphed into what we now refer to as the official 1855 Classification of the Medoc. For more detailed information on the official 1855 Bordeaux wine classification: List of 1855 Classifications
Bordeaux came up with a ranking of the wines in five, unique classes for the red wines and called them Growths; First Growth, Second Growth, Second Growth, Third Growth, Fourth Growth and Fifth Growth. The wines included were all from Medoc, except for the already legendary Chateau Haut-Brion from Graves, which had to be included, due to its worldwide fame.
In Sauternes and Barsac, the sweet white Bordeaux wines were also included, but with only two classes. Chateau d’Yquem was given a special class all to themselves, “First Great Growth, Premier Cru Superieur,” which is the equivalent to the best of all the First Growths.
The 1855 classification allowed the wealthy to easily purchase the best wines in the world and it also informed their guests how special they were, when one of those bottles were opened during dinner.
Explanation of Bordeaux negociants.
The negociant system can be compared to a pre-arranged group of wholesalers who contract to purchase a percentage of a property’s harvest every year. The negociants all pay the same price on the same day at close to the same time. In theory, they are supposed to sell the wines to their customers for the same price, with the same markup as well.
In the past, negociants were responsible for bottling, labeling, and arranging to ship, as well as marketing the wines. Stepping back in time, negociants were also responsible for producing custom blends ordered by customers.
These special orders could range from assemblages that included various percentages of Syrah from Hermitage, or even blends from different producers. For example, at one point in time, it was possible to order a barrel of 50% Chateau Latour along with 50% Lafite Rothschild!
The relationship between the Chateau and the negociants became strained by the start of the 20th century. This took place due to a string of mostly poor to difficult vintages following the classification. 20 years or so of hard years decreased demand for Bordeaux wine significantly in the marketplace.
To remedy this, some negociants entered into long-term contracts to buy a percentage of an estates harvest, for periods of time ranging from 5, 10, or 20 years in an effort to help stabilize costs and risk on both sides of the table.
This started to change with the advent of Chateau bottling which was heavily promoted by Baron Rothschild at Chateau Mouton Rothschild in 1924. The purpose was to offer a guarantee of quality from the property to consumers.
In 1967, it became mandatory for all 1855 Classified growths to bottle their own wine. In 1969, it became AOC law for all chateaux in St. Emilion to bottle their own wine. In 1972, all the top estates began chateau bottling their entire production, as that became part of AOC law for those appellations as well.
As far as futures go, if you think buying wine before it’s finished and bottled is risky, until the late 60s, some negociants purchased the crop before the grapes were harvested. The practice of “sur souche,” buying the grapes off the vine stopped in the late 1960s.
The last major vintages for buying “sur souche” was in 1961, although the practice continued to a limited extent through 1969. Both years spelled disaster. In 1961, while the wines are legendary, the crop was so small, most chateaux were not able to deliver the amount of wine purchased. In 1969, what was on target to be a great vintage turned into one of the worst vintages of all time, due to the non-stop rains during harvest.
The Place de Bordeaux.
Bordeaux wines are sold on the Place de Bordeaux. The Place de Bordeaux is not an actual physical place. It’s more of an idea and a system that is located in the Chartrons district, located in what is known as the negociant quarter in the business district of the city of Bordeaux.
It has worked that way for hundreds of years. Will it continue to operate in the same manner? That is the million-dollar question. To read about where Bordeaux wine futures are headed, The Future of Bordeaux Futures after the 2010 Campaign
Today, with every chateau bottling its own wine, the negociants are responsible for selling and distributing the wine to a myriad of wholesalers, importers, and merchants all over the world.
They are important because part of their responsibilities is to help create new markets. Currently, there are more than 400 negociants active in Bordeaux. Each chateau works with a different number of negociants. Some properties work with 5 different negociants, others work with over 100.
A chateau is not required to sell through negociants, but there are only a handful of estates with the ability to sell their entire production in every vintage on their own. Of course, a few important Bordeaux producers, most notably Tertre Roteboeuf in St. Emilion sell direct to merchants and private customers and do not offer their wines for sale to negociants on the Place de Bordeaux.
Starting with the 2012 vintage, Chateau Latour, the famous First Growth estate ceased to offer their wines as futures. Latour made an official announcement that they would hold the wines at the Chateau and offer them for sale when they were ready to drink. However, the wines would still be sold to the trade through the negociant system.
The Courtier in Bordeaux
The courtier plays an interesting role. Long before phones, faxes and Emails, the negociants were all situated in the city of Bordeaux, in what became known as the negociants quarter, which is located district of Chartrons.
The courtier system dates back to the days when France was under English rule and law when brokers were needed to act as middlemen between producers and buyers of Bordeaux wine. The money for the transactions was also handled by the courtier, who escrowed the funds between the sellers and buyers.
In those days, needing to travel by horse or carriage to and from the vineyards took an entire day. The courtier stepped in and carried messages back and forth between the negociants and the chateaux, helping to arrange an agreement between the two parties.
For this role, the courtier earns 2% of the transaction. Due to the never changing charge of 2%, many courtiers are addressed as Mr. 2% by Bordeaux insiders. The courtier inside the negociant system became law in 1680 when it was decreed by King Louis XIV that all negociants from every wine region had to work with courtiers.
In today’s world, when communication is instant, some people question if their role is warranted. Money and ego are not the best blend for a successful business transaction. The courtier is able to remain unemotional and help facilitate an increasingly heated and difficult transaction.
Interestingly, courtiers are by law allowed to own chateaux and vineyards. Some do own various Bordeaux vineyards. But courtiers are forbidden by law to own or act as a negociant. If the desire to become a courtier seems like an interesting career, it’s one of the most difficult jobs to obtain. You need to pass a series of exams and blind-tasting tests, coupled with a minimum of 5 years of training before you can become a licensed courtier.
There are over 120 active courtiers. But the number of courtiers working with the top properties is small. Less than 20 courtiers are actively working with the most famous estates.
Today, there are five main courtiers active in Bordeaux, Tastet Lawton, (Perhaps the best-known firm) Les Grands Crus, Balaresque, Laurent Quancard, and Leveque, which is the youngest courtier in Bordeaux today.
The best courtiers retain a vast store of knowledge. They are not only aware of the demand for individual wines in a myriad of markets, they also know which negociants hold stock, and what stock they are holding. All that information help makes the transactions between the chateaux and the negociants move much quicker.
That is at the top end. Much of the work done by courtiers involves buying and selling of bulk wines, which are marketed as generic Bordeaux. For chateaux that use the negociant system on the Place de Bordeaux, all transactions go through a courtier, regardless of if the sale takes place during En Primeur, or years later when a chateau decides to sell some of its older stock.
The system works because it gets the wine into the marketplace quickly. Some of its faults are, while it helps the top chateaux that participate in the system, smaller properties are left out and their wines are not available to many consumers. Another fault is the dependence on selling wine from the 1855 classification.
Classified wines, especially the First Growths are the heart and soul of the system. Along with the wines of the Medoc, which has traditionally been their core business. Ets Moueix was the first and is the largest negociant focusing on the wines of the Right Bank.
While many consumers think the negociant system causes wines to be more expensive, that’s not true for the majority of the Bordeaux wines.
For example, when Michel Rolland took his Pomerol, Le Bon Pasteur from the place and marketed the wine with his own company in 2005, the wine was more expensive than it would have been, had it been offered through negociants. In a few years time, Bon Pasteur returned to the negociant system selling their wine on the Place de Bordeaux.
Bordeaux sold in tranches.
To many consumers, tranche is a dirty word. It is considered market manipulation. A tranche is a small slice of the production that is designed to test the strength and price of a wine in the market. The truth is; very few chateaux release their wine in tranches.
That practice is mostly limited to The First Growths. Other chateaux might announce a second or third tranche, but the size of those tranches is the direct opposite of what is taking place with the First Growths. A First Growth could release 5-10% of its wine on a first tranche.
When other Bordeaux chateaux announce a second tranche, that is usually limited to a small percentage of their wine. The purpose is to gain press and show momentum in the marketplace. It is for show and does not reflect the market.
Buying Bordeaux as a future in today’s marketplace.
As a consumer buying Bordeaux wine En Primeur, you will probably be asked to pay as soon as your order is confirmed. But that is not what takes from the negociant or the chateaux. The negociant will offer generally the buyer time to pay.
They offer the merchant to make staggered payments in usually 2 or three stages. Most orders must be paid in full before the end of the year the first year the wines are offered for sale in. For example, 2009 futures were required to be paid for by the end of December 2010. The chateaux also need in full around that same time as well.
Generally speaking, the main reason consumers choose to purchase Bordeaux wine En Primeur is that when the vintage is considered to be of extremely high quality, the wines will go up in price before the wines are bottled. This represents savings for end users or investors.
However, following the 2009 vintage, that has not been the case for most vintages. Prices paid for most wines have remained flat or in several cases, declined. Of course, there have been and will continue to be exceptions. For example, the stunning 2019 vintage was priced below its true value, due to Covid. However, price is not the only reason to buy wines as a future.
The buyer can protect an allocation of rare and desirable wine. Consumers can also choose the format they want to receive in. For example, the consumer can request large formats like magnums or double magnums, or they can ask for half bottles. There is at best, only a minor up-charge for special format requests.
The negociant system will probably remain in place for the majority of Bordeaux chateaux. The chateaux are not in the business of hiring a large sales team of a hundred different people who will contact people all over the world to buy their wine. They would also have to hire people to arrange deliveries and provide other costly services
The chateaux can usually sell every bottle offered in a few hours when the vintage is in high demand. It will take a few more days in more moderate years. Regardless of the quality of the vintage, they will sell every bottle. With that in mind, why would the producers want to change the system?
Negociants and chateaux have an interesting relationship. They need each other. They work together. Yet, they are separate. For example, once a chateau sells its wine to a negociant, that is the end of the sale as far as the property is concerned.
While all negociants sell the wine on the same day at the same price to all their customers, where the wines are sold, and how much of the wine was offered, versus the percentage of stock that was held back remains a closely guarded secret. Most negociants do not release that information to the chateaux.
Some negociants, as part of their business plan, hold back a portion of their stock, hoping to sell it at a higher price after the wine has been released. In part, this helps the negociant earn money in the difficult vintages that are hard to sell. Not every negociants holds back stock. Some offer out all the wines they have for sale as soon as possible.
Changes to the Place de Bordeaux.
Changes in the system have taken place, but in ways the long-established negociants are not happy with. They have more competition for allocations of the top wines than they were use to obtaining.
This is because some of the top properties have started their own negociants companies, not only to sell their wines but to market the wines of other chateaux as well. Plus some companies like Millesima have an Internet division that sells direct to consumers.
Perhaps the biggest changes to the Place de Bordeaux has been the opening of the system to wine from other regions and countries. Today, the Place de Bordeuax now offers some of the world’s most in-demand wines from Napa Valley, Burgundy, the Rhone Valley, Italy and Champagne.
There have been changes to the negociants as well. In June, 2012, Diva, a large, but not one of the top negociants, with sales of a reported 33 million Euros per year sold a 70% stake in their company to Chinese investors. The buyer, Shanghai Sugar Cigarette and Wine (SSCW), a subsidiary of the Chinese state-owned Bright Food company is China’s largest food products group.
The relationship between negociants and the Chinese market has continued expanding since 2008 when taxes on wine were reduced to zero by the Chinese government. This was a smart business decision for all parties concerned. Diva was able to sell for top dollar, as the transaction took place at the high end of the market.
On the other side of the coin, this gave a Chinese company direct access to purchase Bordeaux wine directly from the chateau, without the need to go through a middleman, something that has always been a problem for Chinese buyers.
2015 brought about more changes to the Negociant system. Few of the top, older, well-established firms change hands. Although they do merge as was the case in 2000 when Cordier Mestrezat came about through the merger of Cordier, which was founded in 1886, and Mestrezat which came into being in 1815.
The massive new company is thought to sell more than 50 Million Euros of wine per year. In 2015, Cordier Mestrezat was sold to In Vivo, a giant Swiss/French company that had been focusing on agriculture and agri-food distribution.
By 2016, the negociant world was in a state of flux. While the biggest companies remained well financed, as you would expect from organizations capitalized at one billion dollars or more in some cases, the smaller negociant firms were having a harder time.
The reason for the slowdown is the lack of volume selling through at a quick pace during the futures campaigns. The end result is more companies are forced to hold stock for longer periods of time, which hurt their cash flow.
The end result has brought on several merges in the industry. Some of the companies that have seen mergers are Bordeaux Tradition, which took on the Swiss/French conglomerate, Adamian. Mahler Besse sold to the massive Borie Manoux.
Jacky Lorenzetti, the French industrialist has really invested in Bordeaux over the past few years. He recently purchased Chateau Pedesclaux in Pauillac, Chateau Lilian Ladouys in St. Estephe, and half of Chateau dIssan in Margaux. If that wasn’t enough, he also invested in the negociant LD Vins, purchasing a majority of the company! Vintex headed by Philippe Larche recently took on a partner as did Christophe Reboul Salze.
Before Robert Parker rose to prominence as the world’s leading wine critic, negociants held more power in their relationship with the chateaux in setting prices. Today, that is no longer the case.
When Robert Parker retired in 2015, it was interesting to see how that balance of power shifted, as well as view how the system progresses and adapts to a new world economy, emerging markets, and an aggressive pricing policy over the next several years.
Bordeaux negociants sell wine all over the world, but they are primarily located in Bordeaux. However, due to changes in the American marketplace that took place following the demise of Diageo, coupled with the lack of interest by Southern Wine and Spirits, as well as other larger importers and distributors, 4 negociants opened offices in America, Diva, Duclot, Joanne and Compagnie Medocaine. Other negociants are also showing an interest in having a physical presence in the American market.
If you’re interested in learning more about Bordeaux negociants, there is a museum devoted to negociants, “Musee de Vin et Negoce,” which is located in the Chartrons area, which is the old negociant quarter. For an added touch of history, the museum is housed in the original cellars that were once used by the official wine merchant for King Louis XV, the King of France.
