H. Cuvelier & Fils

The house

H. Cuvelier & Fils has been a merchant and an owner of vineyards since 1804. The Cuveliers were already established as wine merchants in the north of France when they set out to make wine themselves, and Château Le Crock, at Saint-Estèphe, was the first step, at the start of the 20th century. G.A.K., the anonymous London author whose Clarets and Sauternes of 1920 followed the sales of each classed growth vintage by vintage, counts Cuvelier among the houses that bought the wine of Château Figeac first hand in 1904 and 1906. The Cuvelier brothers took Château de Camensac, at Saint-Laurent, in 1912.

In 1920 the family bought Château Léoville Poyferré, a Second Growth of Saint-Julien, and Château Moulin Riche from the Lawtons. G.A.K. wrote that year that Léoville Poyferré “at present belongs to Messrs. H. Cuvelier et Fils, also proprietors of the Chateau Le Crock, at St. Estephe”. In 1922 Charles Cocks and Édouard Féret, whose Bordeaux et ses vins was the directory of the Bordeaux trade, listed Léoville Poyferré and Moulin Riche under H. Cuvelier et Fils. They gave Le Crock 125 tonneaux (the old Bordeaux measure of a crop, 900 liters, or 4 barrels) and a gold medal of 1907. The family later planted in Argentina, at Cuvelier Los Andes.

Anne Cuvelier and Sara Lecompte Cuvelier run the house from Bordeaux as directors general. In 2018 Sara Lecompte Cuvelier took over the direction of Léoville Poyferré and Le Crock from her cousin Didier Cuvelier. She is the 5th generation of the family at Léoville Poyferré.

At a glance

Kind

Négociant

Based in

Bordeaux

Founded

1804

Owner

The Cuvelier family

Direction

Anne Cuvelier and Sara Lecompte Cuvelier, directors general

Châteaux

Léoville Poyferré and Moulin Riche, since 1920; Le Crock, since the start of the 20th century

Abroad

Cuvelier Los Andes, Argentina

In the record

Figeac, bought first hand, 1904 and 1906; Camensac, from 1912