Seignouret Frères & Cie

The house

A Seignouret Frères of Bordeaux corresponded with the Paris bank of Rothschild Frères from 1864 to 1867. As Seignouret Frères & Cie, the house had an agent in Amsterdam by 1919, and in June 1921 it set up a depot of its wines there with the Burgundy house Ph. Bouchard & Cie, of Nuits-Saint-Georges. The Brou de Laurière family owned Établissements Seignouret Frères from 1927. It lived on the grands crus and sold most of them abroad: in 2011 it made about 70% of its sales outside France, with 10 people.

In February 2007 thieves took more than 3,000 bottles of grands crus from its stock, most of them of the 2004 vintage, bought en primeur (sold as futures, while the wine is still in barrel) and already paid for by its clients. The house undertook to reimburse them, and by April most of the wine had been found, in a warehouse at Villeneuve-sur-Lot and a disused hangar at Mérignac.

Laurent Barrier had worked at the house for 16 years and was its managing director and a minority shareholder. In May 2011 he took control with Erwan Flageul, whose family owned Château Brillette, in Moulis. By then the house had sold Les Hauts de Brillette, the estate’s second wine, for 8 years. In October 2025 the commercial court of Bordeaux opened a recovery procedure (redressement judiciaire) for the company, under which it goes on trading. Since December 2025 Laurent Barrier has chaired the house through a company of his own. In July 2026 it opened a second site, at Le Bouscat.

At a glance

Kind

Négociant

Based in

Bordeaux, cours du Maréchal Foch

Founded

Établissements Seignouret Frères, from November 1927

Direction

Laurent Barrier, president since December 2025, through his company EMCS Holding

In the record

Les Hauts de Brillette, second wine of Château Brillette, sold by the house for 8 years by 2011