Top of the second label

Every Premiere Cru estate has second label, produced from grapes adjudged not sufficiently high quality for their flagship wine, whose wine quality is marginally lower, & is priced at a third or less

In 1855, the French Emperor Napoleon III asked for a classification of the best Bordeaux wines for his “Exposition Universelle de Paris”. The wines (the reds were then known as claret) were rated by wine merchants on current prices and reputation into five classes or cru — from First to Fifth, with First Growths (Premier Cru) being the highest-rated.

Only four estates were selected as Premier Cru: Château Lafite (now Lafite-Rothschild), Latour, Margaux, and Haut-Brion. A fifth estate, Mouton, was relegated to Second-Growth status as it had been purchased in 1853 by the Englishman Baron Rothschild — it took 120 years