Angélus also withdraws from St. Emilion classification

Looks like the classification is stillborn…


This is their press release.


The Saint-Emilion classification has long been a wonderful collective motivational tool, which has enabled the appellation to be promoted in an efficient way.

The stakes within the classification have brought about numerous criticisms and has made it the target of a system of denigration leading to numerous cases of legal recourse. This happened of course in 2006 and then again in 2012 (legal proceedings are still in progress almost ten years on), and we have just learned that two properties have brought emergency legal proceedings against the 2022 classification, which is in the process of being drawn up.

Once a source of progress, the Saint-Emilion classification has become a vehicle for antagonism and instability.

While regretting this deleterious context, Angelus takes note of it and exits the system in withdrawing from the 2022 classification.

Naturally, the recent court decision which, after more than ten years of proceedings, fined Hubert de Boüard on account of his participation in the national wine appellations committee, reinforces us in our choice to withdraw from a process, the viability of which does not seem to us to be assured, and the advantages of which do not make up for the risks of unjust attacks.

Angelus will continue, with humility, to pursue its path in the same search for excellence and will devote itself, more than ever, to its first vocation, to which the de Boüard de Laforest family has been committed for eight generations now: the production of great wines capable of ageing over many years and which reflect their appellation, their terroir and each vintage.

“While the values which we hold dear and the dynamic in which Angelus is currently engaged have led us to deem the current system as unsuited to the challenges of our estate and its appellation, our family’s deep attachment to the region and to the reputation of its wines remains intact. Angelus will continue to actively promote Saint-Emilion and the great growths of Bordeaux on all the continents and in all four corners of the world,” states Stéphanie de Boüard-Rivoal, the President of Angelus.

Oh the irony . . . .

Isn’t this basically being pulled over for doing 75 in a 55 and then declaring yourself a sovereign citizen?

No. It’s basically being pulled over for doing 75 in a 55 zone you lobbied to set, and then declaring yourself sovereign . . . .

Angelus extracted what it could, and now blames the same-behaving compatriots.

Who needs the classification? We’ve been in TWO James Bond movies!

Right. After their promotion to 1er they’ve doubled prices … now the classification has done its service …
I don’t care vm …

Haha, nice try. They’ll always be remembered as the one responsible for destroying whatever value was left in the classification in the first place.

Utterly brilliant. No risk of demotion for Bouard’s 2012 shenanigans and again putting themselves in the same club as Ausone and Cheval. I have to say I admire the chutzpah

Pavie stands alone!

There can be only one

Thanks Juan Sánchez-Villalobos Ramírez.

This thread is almost as funny as the news itself.

A luxuriously polished grift is this rubber-ruler classification system.

While I in no way would defend Bouard, he is clearly a creature of his culture. The Bordeaux classification system is so obviously a sham, broken and pointless. It’s only value is to sucker the uniformed, perpetuated by a system of professional sucking. Why can’t Bordeaux wine producers earn their value the honest way, with objective 3rd party wine reviews?

With copious free samples and dinners for the objective third party reviewers!

Irony is always so hard to convey here. Especially if one is trying to be subtle.

Message boards (emails, texts, etc.) are not the best medium to convey irony, let alone anything subtle.

Chateau MacLeod.