Beyerman

The house

Jean-Simon Beyerman, a Dutch shipowner, settled in Bordeaux in 1620, and his family stayed in the trade with the north. Théophile Malvezin, whose history of the Bordeaux trade appeared in 1892, put Cornelis Beyerman among the merchants of the northern countries named in the registers of the Chamber of Commerce around 1705. Between 1790 and 1793 the Paris bank Greffulhe kept letters from 4 Beyerman houses in Bordeaux, and all 4 wrote to it in 1792: Beyerman l’aîné, Beyerman frères, A. C. Beyerman and Jean Beyerman et Cie. Malvezin counted the Beyermans among the families of that trade still in Bordeaux in his own day, and a M. Beyerman, consul of the Netherlands, at 45 quai des Chartrons, was among the subscribers to his book.

In 1824 a Beyerman bought Château Haut-Brion for 525,000 francs, and the family held the estate until 1837. William Franck, whose Traité sur les vins du Médoc first appeared in 1824, set the sale down in his edition of 1845. The wine went far: a glass seal that Jean-Henri Beyerman used on his bottles between 1825 and 1835 has turned up at St. Francisville, in Louisiana. Later in the century M. H. Beyerman owned Château Saint-Albe, at Gradignan. Charles Cocks and Édouard Féret, whose Bordeaux et ses vins was the reference book of the Bordeaux trade, gave it 100 tonneaux (the old Bordeaux measure of a crop, 900 liters, or 4 barrels) of red in 1898.

As H. et O. Beyerman, the house bought from the classed growths. A book on the classed growths of the Médoc printed in London in 1920 lists it among the buyers of the 1896 vintage of Château Mouton d’Armailhacq, now Château d’Armailhac. It gives the house the monopoly of the 1904 vintage of Château Ferrière. The same book names it among the houses that bought Château Cos d’Estournel, Château Montrose, Château Léoville Las Cases, Château Coutet and Château Canon La Gaffelière, and Château de Sales from the 1893 vintage.

Fredrik Rudebeck, of a Swedish family, took the house over in the early 1990s. His son Nils Rudebeck joined him in 2011, became managing director on July 20, 2016, and is its president today. Fredrik Rudebeck turned the house toward the classed growths and the wines that stand with them, a trade it had known as H. et O. Beyerman.

At a glance

Kind

Négociant

Based in

Bordeaux, cours Xavier Arnozan

Founded

1620, by Jean-Simon Beyerman; Cornelis Beyerman in the Chamber of Commerce registers around 1705

Owner

The Rudebeck family, since the early 1990s

Direction

Nils Rudebeck, president

In the record

Haut-Brion, owned from 1824 to 1837; Mouton d’Armailhacq, 1896 vintage; Ferrière, the whole 1904 vintage; Saint-Albe, owned in 1898