Number of châteaux in Bordeaux. Go on, take a guess...

…. and the answer is…. 8,944 as just announced by the Fédération des Grands Vins de Bordeaux.

10% of these are produced by cooperative cellars.

Since 1990 a château can sell their wine under one, and just one, other name if they can prove an historical precedent.

As many châteaux as there are, there were 12,650 ten years ago!

This reduced number goes to show a number of economic factors at play.
It also shows that it is kind of reckless to say “Bordeaux is… (fill in the blank)”.
The variety is overwhelming.

Best regards,
Alex R.

And yet, none of them can figure out how to create brand excitement in seattle…

I would struggle to name more than 150.

Would have 40 odd producers in the cellar

Oh another 6 more for Sauternes

We need a few less. Imagine the Chinese excitement if there were exactly 8888 chateaux!

OK, enough already with the snide comments .

Michael, don’t people drink Château Margaux, Château, Haut Brion, Château d’Yquem in Seattle.
I’ll bet they do!
So, the brand exitement is there, even in sleepy (sleepless?) Seattle.

A château is a double-edged thing. It makes people dream and was an ingenious invention of the Bordelais. However, a château can only produce so much wine. Therefore building a brand is very difficult.
The very word Bordeaux means different things in different countries.
To many people on this board, it is restricted to great growths or assimilated wines.
The tip of the iceberg.

And, yes, of course, since the spectrum is very large, there are some real duds among the 9,000.
But there are some real gems too among the affordable wines…

All the best,
Alex R.

I accept that applies to me. I have not ventured out of the rarefied class of classified growths. And even within them there are some styles I like and many more that I don’t.
So by adhering to the above game plan am I missing out on many good value wines. Possibly. There are many factors - I guess I am not adventurous enough, I did not the opportunity to taste as broadly as many of you, and at times when I did taste other producers than my select few I found them wanting. So its a conservative selection.
My philosophy was to pay a few extra dollars but get the better stuff. Its like -“I know what I want and I want what I know”.

To me (and an economist) this smacks of oversupply, and doubly so if these poor bastards can’t sell their wine. You go into a store in the United States, and you are lucky to see more than 50 “chateau” on the shelves. I doubt I’ve ever heard of more than about 400-500 Bordeaux chateau in all my life, so either their mind-share is so small to be insignificant to wine drinkers OR they do an extremely poor job of selling their product. How many of these get exported?

Is there a point to this? It is not my responsibility to learn the names of all 8,944 estates. Most of them don’t sell in the US. I am sure Bordeaux is not unique. There are many, many producers in Burgundy, Alsace, the Loire, Germany, various regions of Italy (probably dwarfs the numbers of Bordeaux producerts), the US, etc., etc., etc.

If they want my attention, they need to earn it, not the other way around. Ever hear of the term marketing?

Hey, another Bordeaux thread!

…boring. Color me reckless.

So are there more Cab producers in California than Bordeaux Chateaus?

According to this in January of 2014 http://www.winesandvines.com/template.cfm?section=news&content=127266

The United States now has 7,762 wineries, led by California with 3,674.

Read more at: http://www.winesandvines.com/template.cfm?section=news&content=127266
Copyright © Wines & Vines

They’ve been at it a while longer too…

Certainly true, but of the 9k estates, I bet 8k are never imported.

People who are bored with Bordeaux are bored with life .

Alex R., quote dating from June 16th 2016 4:05 pm.

And wine lovers’ suicide rates quadrupled overnight.


Or were you referencing Johnson rather than Adams

A quick search on Cellar Tracker yields 4,499 unique wine producers in Bordeaux (2010 vintage). I’m sure there are plenty of errors and duplicates, but I’m surprised that even this many are registered in this online tool.

One thing that’s so different (from the US) about the food and wine culture of wine-producing Europe is how ‘local’ it all is. If you go to a restaurant outside a major city, you are likely to be offered wine created within a few miles of the restaurant. Or if not very close to vineyards, certainly within a few dozen miles. Many wine makers don’t care about marketing or distribution because they distribute locally. The global distribution network is dominated by a small number of players who have invested heavily in the brands they handle and can’t support many more.

My POV of these large numbers of producers is that this doesn’t represent some burden on global buyers, but instead reflects the absolutely wonderful hyper-local nature of wine distribution and consumption in much of Europe.

I’ve never found myself to b bored with Bordeaux. But I have been apathetic and indifferent towards Bordeaux. In fact, I’m that way at present.

I think Alex deserves serious comments and thoughtful discussion, so let’s try that.

First of all, I tried to find the list just out of curiosity, but unfortunately the website at http://www.fgvb.fr does not have an English alternative and my French is rather rusty.I tried to make my way through, but at every turn I was asked for a log in ID and password except fr a few times when I clicked on links that just did not work. I eventually gave up. So I Googled 8,944 Bordeaux Chateau and I found this thread, but nothing else helpful.

Then I hit on an idea - how about using Cellartracker to identify Bordeaux Chateaux and see which ones I recognized. Since I memorized the first three levels of the 1855 classification when I was in high school, I figured that I had a chance of knowing more than just a few. CT had 10,694 Bordeaux producers, with some clutter, some Chateaux that no longer exist, and some second wines resulting in double counting. So the number is in the ballpark, to use an American idiom. I then made it all the way to #89 by number of bottles listed in CT - Chateaux St. Pierre - before I got to a wine that I did not recognize. Once I got to about #150 - there were a lot of unknowns. By the time I got to #350, I had heard of maybe one out of 10. If I jump forward a few more hundred and discard second wines, I know jut a couple out of every 100.

Is my lack of knowledge of the thousands of Bordeaux Chateaux is somehow an adverse reflection on the buyer, or the seller, or perhaps the seller’s market as a whole. The answer to me is clear - if the Federation des Grand Vin de Bordeaux have any expectation that I am going to know of or care about such a huge number of Chateaux, they are walking down the wrong path. Furthermore, if they think that I am going to exert the effort to hunt through the thousands of wines in order to find a few gems, they are CRAZY. There are so many great wine choices throughout the world. I have 38 different Bordeaux Chateaux in my cellar, and I think 36 of them still exist. If they want that number to inch upwards, especially if they want it to inch upwards other than through the 1855 classification or the later St. Emilion classifications, they had better get to work.

Just for fun - here is a list of the round number Chateaux from Cellartracker based upon number of recorded bottles. I know that the data isn’t perfect and there is plenty of clutter, but just for fun, tell me which of these you have (A) heard of and (B) tasted. I get a score of 1 out of 9, and that is only because I knew a guy named Lamothe whose family came here from France in the 1800s and I once checked for all Lamothe wines in CT.

1000 - Guinaudeau
2000 - Château Tour Perey
3000 - Château Cotes de Bonde
4000 - Château Grandchemin Monplaisir
5000 - Château Daubiac
6000 - Château d’Argilas Le Pape
7000 - Y. Armand et Fils Chateau la Rame
8000 - Château Peyragué
9000 - Château Moulin Lamothe
After which we have zero bottles in CT for wine 10000.

PS - Since Chateau means castle, I wonder whether all of these places actually have castles. What does it take to qualify as a chateau? Since the French were so protective about the use of the word Chateau among California wineries because it is a French word, do they strictly adhere to its own meaning in Bordeaux wine nomenclature?

I would not have guessed that California would have less than half of the US wineries. Wow.

My favorite Chateaux is right on the D2 and outside of their building they had a giant, blow-up wine bottle. Easily the cheesiest thing I have ever seen in front of any winery anywhere. I wish I could remember their name.

This is why when I have traveled to Bordeaux I make a strong effort to try wines I have not heard of. I have friends who go and are only drinking first growths or whatever. Well, good for you, but you can find those wines here at home. I try to drink the wines I will likely never see again.

Jay… Most of the wines made in Bordeaux are just not very good. Generally speaking, the best wines are exported. While a few wines that are of good quality are not exported, most quality wines find a home. No Alex, I have not tasted all 7,500 plus wines, but I think I’ve probably tasted close to 1,000 different estates over the years. Bordeaux is massive with close to 118,000 hectares, 291,000 acres, give or take. The drop in quality is to be expected.

The reason for the decline in the number of chateaux is due to larger estates purchasing smaller estates and adding those vines to their property and because thousands of these small producers with poor terroir do not make enough money to survive as their wines cannot find a market. The French government wants to see less planted in Bordeaux, because obviously, simply placing the name Bordeaux on a label is not enough to sell a wine.

As to your question, it does not take much to use the name chateau. A chateau can range from a stunning estate to a small, dilapidated structure in Bordeaux. Yes, there are more than a few castles in Bordeaux. I think Chateau d’Issan is probably the most famous. de Pressac, La Tour Martillac, de Lamarque and of course d’Yquem are also castles.