In 1855, Paris hosted the Universal Exposition called for by Napoleon III. For the Gironde, the challenge was to present its wines as a united front. Out of that preparation came a document that still shapes the Bordeaux hierarchy today: the 1855 classification. Jean-Baptiste Duquesne, winegrower at Château Cazebonne, summed up what went on behind the scenes in a reading note, which this section takes up and completes.

The presentation of the Gironde wines was entrusted to the Bordeaux Chamber of Commerce. All the wines were shown under a single pavilion, with a single label prepared by the Chamber. For the most ordinary wines, the label bore only the name of the commune. For the classified growths, it gave the name of the cru and of its owner. Originally, the owner's name was not meant to appear: according to the book under review, it was an intervention by Lafite with Jérôme Bonaparte that changed the rule.

A ranking based on prices, not tasting

The Chamber of Commerce asked the Syndicat des courtiers, the brokers' union, to draw up the list of classified growths and their ranks. The brokers did not taste: they relied on the history of transaction prices on the Bordeaux market. The handwritten list is dated 18 April 1855. It includes 57 red growths, all from the Médoc but one, and 21 white growths from Sauternes and Barsac.

The estates were then asked to supply six bottles for tasting in Paris. More than half never sent any samples. Behind the scenes there was much negotiation to make sure medals went not to individual estates but to the classified growths of the Médoc and Sauternes as a whole. The Chamber of Commerce won its case, not without difficulty.

A classification learned from the newspaper

After the Exposition closed, Bordeaux proprietors learned from the press that the classification existed, even though it had no official status at the time. Some tried to have it revised through the Chamber of Commerce, in vain.

Only Cantemerle managed to be added afterwards, at the bottom of the list of fifth growths, through an addition dated 16 September 1855. The estate went directly to the brokers' union and justified its prices with direct sales, notably to Holland, outside the Bordeaux market. After that, only one revision succeeded: in 1973, Mouton Rothschild moved from second to first growth. Officially a revision remains possible, but it now seems far too sensitive to undertake.

In the midst of the powdery mildew crisis

The classification came at the height of the powdery mildew crisis, which was then destroying a large part of the harvests. This probably explains the low participation of the estates and the many missing samples. The brokers therefore took a snapshot of established properties, large enough to have built a reputation on the market.

What about Graves?

Only one Graves estate appears in the red classification: Haut-Brion, in Pessac. According to the reading note, it did not send samples to the Chamber of Commerce either, but made sure it was tasted at the Exposition. The book does not explain why the other Graves estates are absent. Jean-Baptiste Duquesne's hypothesis is that powdery mildew, which hit Graves hard, played a part. It is a lead, not a certainty.

For a Graves winegrower, this story is a reminder that a hierarchy is often a snapshot of a market at a given moment. A classification drawn up by a small circle became the benchmark because revising it was too delicate. Terroirs, for their part, do not change at the pace of lists: that is the idea behind our section on yesterday's minor terroirs and tomorrow's great ones.

Further reading

• The history of the vine
• Wine terroirs
• Original post: A fascinating read on more than one count

Sources

• Wikipedia (French), "Classification officielle des vins de Bordeaux de 1855" (list of 18 April 1855, number of growths, addition of Cantemerle on 16 September 1855, promotion of Mouton in 1973): fr.wikipedia.org
• Dewey Markham Jr., 1855: A History of the Bordeaux Classification, the reference book on how the classification came about.