Classification

The Classification of 1855

Drawn up by the brokers of the Bordeaux exchange in 13 days for a world fair, and changed 2 times in 171 years.

What it is

On April 5, 1855 the Bordeaux Chamber of Commerce asked the brokers of the exchange for a list of all the red classed growths in the department, as exact and complete as possible. The brokers delivered it on April 18, 13 days later, in time for the Exposition Universelle in Paris. They tasted nothing. They ranked by what the wine had fetched on the Bordeaux market over the preceding decades, which is why the list is a price record with a government seal, and why an estate that sold its whole crop abroad could be left off it.

It is 2 lists, not 1

The document the brokers handed over classifies 2 different things, and the same words are used for both. One list ranks the red wines of the Médoc, with Château Haut-Brion of the Graves the single outsider, in 5 classes from first growth to fifth. The other ranks the sweet wines of Sauternes and Barsac, in 3: Château d’Yquem alone as Premier Cru Supérieur, then the first growths, then the seconds. A second growth of Margaux and a second growth of Barsac hold the same words and belong to different rankings. The roll below is printed in the 2 halves the document actually has.

How it moves

It does not. The list has no revision clause and no committee to revise it. In 171 years exactly 2 names have changed position: Cantemerle was written in beneath the last of the fifths within months of the original, and Mouton Rothschild was raised from second growth to first in 1973. The count has changed more often than the ranks, because estates divided and both halves kept the classification.

What it does not say

The 1855 list ranks châteaux, not ground. The name carries the rank, so an estate that sells parcels keeps it and an estate that buys them does not gain one. we wrote about that here.

Every edition

4

  1. 1855 April 18, 1855

    The brokers deliver the list

    The syndics of the brokers of commerce write to the Bordeaux Chamber of Commerce. What they hand over is 2 rankings on 1 sheet: 57 red growths in 5 classes, every one of them of the Médoc but for Haut-Brion of the Graves, and 21 sweet wines of Sauternes and Barsac in 3, with Yquem alone above the rest.

  2. 1855 September 16, 1855

    Cantemerle is written in

    Caroline de Villeneuve-Durfort took 40 years of sale records to the brokers. Her whole crop had gone to Holland, sold direct, so the Bordeaux ledgers the brokers ranked from had never bought a cask of it. The name sits on the original document beneath the last of the fifths, in a different and smaller hand. It is the only estate ever added. we wrote about that here.

    • In Château CantemerleFifth growth

  3. 1961 1960 and 1961

    A revision that failed

    The INAO drew up a reclassification that dropped 17 estates and brought in 13 new ones. The proposal reached the press before it reached a decree and was never adopted. Alexis Lichine published his own classification in 1962 and revised it until 1985; the only one of his proposals ever realized was lifting Mouton out of the second growths.

  4. 1973 June 21, 1973

    Mouton Rothschild is raised to first growth

    The minister of agriculture, Jacques Chirac, signed. Philippe de Rothschild had asked in 1961, in 1969 and in 1971 before it carried. The label had read Premier ne puis, second ne daigne, Mouton suis, which is to say: first I cannot be, second I do not deign to be, Mouton I am. It now reads Premier je suis, second je fus, Mouton ne change: first I am, second I was, Mouton does not change. we wrote about that here.

    • Up Château Mouton RothschildSecond growth to first growth

What has moved since

The estate that disappeared

Château Dubignon was a third growth of Margaux in 1855 and is gone. No decree and no vote removed the name: it simply stopped being printed, and the vineyard was divided among its neighbors at Margaux. we wrote about that here.

Why 57 red growths became 61

Grégoire Croidieu and Walter Powell built a panel of the classified estates from 6 editions of Féret, 1850 to 1929, and counted 62 distinct classified organizations over those 79 years on a list of 57 that cannot change. Estates divided and both halves kept the rank. Léoville was broken up from 1826 and settled as 3 estates by 1840, Las Cases, Poyferré and Barton. Pichon Longueville became Pichon Baron and Pichon Comtesse de Lalande in 1850. Batailley became Batailley and Haut-Batailley in 1941. Gruaud-Larose went the other way: divided in 1867, and put back together when the Cordier family bought the 2 halves in 1917 and 1935.

And 21 sweet wines became 27

Rabaud was split into Sigalas-Rabaud and Rabaud-Promis in 1903. Doisy became Doisy-Daëne, Doisy-Dubroca and Doisy-Védrines in the 1870s. Peyraguey became Clos Haut-Peyraguey and Lafaurie-Peyraguey in 1879. Lamothe was divided in 1961, and Romer early in the 20th century.

Names that changed

Mouton d’Armailhacq carried the Rothschild family name for 2 generations and went back to being Château d’Armailhac in 1989. The estate the brokers wrote down as Carnet is Château La Tour Carnet. Marquis d’Alesme Becker has dropped the Becker. Rausan-Ségla went back to the older spelling, Rauzan-Ségla, in 1994.

The list today

88

The red wines of the Médoc and the Graves

Premier Cru 5

Deuxième Cru 14

Troisième Cru 14

Quatrième Cru 10

Cinquième Cru 18

The sweet wines of Sauternes and Barsac

Premier Cru Supérieur 1

Premier Cru 11

Deuxième Cru 15

See this classification on the map

Sources

Conseil des Grands Crus Classés en 1855, the history of the classification · Conseil des Grands Crus Classés en 1855, the classified growths · Château Mouton Rothschild, key dates, 1973 · Decanter, the official Bordeaux wine classification of 1855 · Berry Bros and Rudd, the 1855 Médoc classification · Croidieu and Powell, Organizations as Carriers of Status and Class Dynamics, 2024

All the classifications