Guide
What does Cru Bourgeois mean on a Médoc label?
Three tiers, 170 estates, a jury that looks at the cellar and the shop as well as the glass, and a list that starts from nothing every 5 years.
The short answer
A rank for
A third fewer, and new names at the top
| Tier | 2020 | 2025 |
|---|---|---|
| Cru Bourgeois (opens in a new tab) Exceptionnel | 14 | 14 |
| Cru Bourgeois Supérieur | 56 | 36 |
| Cru Bourgeois | 179 | 120 |
| All | 249 | 170 |
The list shrank by about a third between 2 editions, and the cut fell on the 2 lower tiers. The top tier kept its number and changed its people. Eight estates came up into Exceptionnel, La Cardonne (opens in a new tab), Laujac (opens in a new tab), and Paloumey (opens in a new tab) among them. Six held the rank, among them Malescasse (opens in a new tab) and d’Arsac (opens in a new tab). Another 8 that had held it in 2020 are not on the 2025 list at all. The list does not say whether they did not apply or were not retained.
The geography is lopsided. Of the 170, 144 stand in the
How an estate is judged
Taking part is voluntary, and each candidate is judged on 5 vintages of its wine, tasted blind side by side. For 2025 the vintages were 2017 to 2021, tasted between February and September 2024 by 2 panels of 5, drawn from 30 trained professional tasters. Cru Bourgeois requires level 2 environmental certification; Supérieur and Exceptionnel must also reach level 3, Haute Valeur Environnementale (HVE).
The 2 upper tiers ask for more than the glass. Candidates file a dossier on everything from the cellar to how the wine is sold abroad. A commission of 10 experts then visits them, a jury of 6 decides, and Exceptionnel needs a two-thirds majority, cast in secret. An independent verification body, QB Vérification, runs the process from end to end, and the wine is checked again before bottling in each of the 5 years.
So the rank rewards an estate as a business as well as a wine. A Supérieur is not simply a lesser Exceptionnel. It may be a wine that tasted as well, from an estate that scored lower on how it is run and sold.
A list that can be taken to court
The rules come from a cahier des charges, the classification’s official rulebook, which the members approved with 78% of the vote and the state homologated at the end of 2017. That makes the list open to challenge. The owner of
Six dates since 1932
| Year | What happened |
|---|---|
| 1932 | Bordeaux brokers list 444 estates in 3 levels; the ministry never ratifies it |
| 1979 | EU labeling rules recognize the Cru Bourgeois mention |
| 2003 | The state homologates the first official list: 247 of 490 candidates, 9 Exceptionnels, 87 Supérieurs, 151 Crus Bourgeois |
| 2007 | A court annuls the 2003 list on February 27; in July the fraud office bans the term |
| 2009 | A decree of October 20 makes Cru Bourgeois an annual mention for a specific lot of wine; the first selection, of the 2008 vintage, is published in 2010 |
| 2020 | The 3 tiers return on February 20, for the 2018 to 2022 vintages |
The 2003 list fell because 4 members of its jury had a stake in it, and the answer after 2007 was to hand the judging to an outside body. The tiers took 13 more years to come back. What came back with them is a rank an estate holds for 5 vintages at a time, and has to win again. The 2020 list covered the 2018 to 2022 vintages, and the 2025 list covers the next 5.
Where to go next
Sources: Alliance des Crus Bourgeois du