H&A Location was France's largest barrel leasing company. Its judicial liquidation, declared in spring 2026, affects not only its employees and directors, but also hundreds of wine estates, including ours.
This situation further weakens us, alongside recurring climatic incidents and the current slump in wine sales.
For Cazebonne, this means a €50,000 loss. A tough blow at a time when cash flow is critical for survival in this crisis.

H&A Location : a system designed to appeal to winemakers

The model was simple and appealing. The winemaker selected their barrels from their cooper, as they would have done with a direct purchase. H&A Location bought them and arranged a 4-year loan for us with the banks. The bank debited us a monthly payment over 4 years, and we could choose each year to buy our barrels from the cooper of our choice, for the amount stipulated in the credit agreement. Eventually, H&A took back our used barrels and organised their second life on the second-hand market.

For an estate like ours, the benefits were significant : spreading out investment, regularly renewing our barrel stock without tying up all the necessary cash flow at once, and offloading the work of reselling used casks. In an industry where ageing involves considerable sums several years before bottling, being able to finance our outstanding barrel stock was essential.

The system worked so well that H&A had become a major player in the industry : approximately 2,000 client estates and a reported stock of over a million barrels. In other words, a structuring link between coopers, winemakers, and financial institutions.

How could such a major player go bankrupt ?

Ongoing investigations will undoubtedly delve deeper into the matter and determine whether there were management errors. In any case, H&A Location was placed in judicial liquidation on 1st April 2026, following an ad hoc mandate opened in October 2025 and a conciliation procedure in February 2026. The ruling reveals : €43.4 million in liabilities, for only a few thousand euros in declared available assets, and a loss of €7.38 million in the last known financial year.

If we delve a little deeper, H&A Location's operating principle was as follows. Upon signing the contract, they had us borrow four times the amount of the barrels we wished to purchase for a vintage.
H&A Location thus received four times the amount required for the year's barrel purchase. They used this to pay our invoices for the year.

What if I don't buy any barrels for a year ?
H&A Location reimbursed me the difference between what the bank had debited from me and the updated amount actually due.
I signed the contract at the end of 2022.
I didn't buy any barrels in 2023. I received this difference throughout 2024.
I bought less for the 2024 vintage. They continued to pay me the difference until October 2025. After that, radio silence.
I bought barrels for the 2025 vintage, thinking they would be financed by H&A Location. My cooper has never been paid and is now coming after me.

The banker continues to debit €4,200 from my account (until end of September 2026).
I also don't receive H&A Location's commercial invoice.
Our loss : €3,600 x 12 months + €10,000 unpaid to the cooper.
That’s a bill of €54,000.

H&A Location was ultimately engaging in what amounts to kiting (without, I believe, any intention to defraud anyone). They were repaying each person with money from another.

What they hadn't foreseen :
- that barrel purchases could drop sharply following small vintages (2023 and 2024),
- that the wine market would experience such a deep crisis.

And we, as winemakers, didn't have the common sense to realise that the system was susceptible to collapse in the event of a sudden market recession. We didn't want to contemplate that scenario.
It's not easy to anticipate the worst, when dealing with a well-established company, one of whose shareholders was Crédit Agricole (via its GSO Capital subsidiary) alongside founders Florent Arrouy and Richard Hardillier.

The investigation will show whether the wine crisis alone explains the company's liquidation. How the company could accumulate €43 million in liabilities without raising the alarm sooner.
In March 2023, H&A Location carried out an LBO for the exit of its shareholder Ciclad.
I'll be curious to know how this LBO contributed to accelerating the company's downfall.

Unpaid debts to coopers are estimated at over €10 million. And these coopers can legally turn to the owners by activating the retention of title clause. They haven't been paid for these barrels : as long as the barrel isn't paid for, the cooper can remain its legal owner and attempt to reclaim it, even from the winemaker who received it in good faith.

The Impact on Our Estate

By the end of September, the banker will have debited the last monthly payment. That will be the end of the nightmare for us. But our cash flow has been severely impacted.
It will take us months to recover.

We fight every day to sell a little more wine and get back on track. But it's not easy to row against the current right now. We get exhausted, sometimes just treading water.

The consequences will be difficult for coopers, who will not recover all the sums involved, because many estates will not be able to renew their barrel stock in 2026.

The wine industry truly did not need this additional crisis !