Every ten years, the classification of Saint-Emilion wines must be reviewed.

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Chris Warren / SUPERSTOCK / SIPA

Behind the classification of the grands crus of Saint-Emilion, there are strong commercial and financial challenges for the properties.

After a decision of the Council of State which referred this case Friday to the administrative court of appeal of Bordeaux, the justice will have to examine the merits of the classification, disputed since February 2013 by three castles rejected.

It is about Croque-Michotte, classified grand cru until 1996 then rejected and already at the origin of a request for cancellation of the classification in 2006, Corbin-Michotte and La Tour du Pin Figeac, who had seized the justice after the 2012 classification, which had rejected them.

This classification created in 1955 is in fact revised every ten years by the National Institute of Origin and Quality (INAO), depending on the Ministry of Agriculture.

The Saint-Emilion appellation is the only one to question its classification of grands crus every ten years.

The other two classifications of great Bordeaux wines, that of 1855 for Médoc and Sauternes and that of 1959 for Graves, have been fixed since their creation.

In 2006, for the first time, it was annulled by justice, seized by eight decommissioned properties.

The 2012 ranking was to replace it

Tasting would no longer be the central criterion

The three discarded wine châteaux considered their downgrading to be "incomprehensible", contesting in particular the fact that the tasting note is not the predominant criterion, and the taking into account of criteria according to them ancillary, such as the need to have a reception room. in the field, or multilingual reception staff.

The administrative court had found them wrong in December 2015, de facto validating the classification.

The castles had appealed but, in April 2019, the administrative court of appeal confirmed the 2015 judgment. However, these court decisions were not based on the merits, but on the fact that the plaintiffs had filed their request too late, that is to say more than two months after the interministerial decree of 29 October 2012 approving the classification.

The representatives of Château Croque-Michotte had appealed as a last resort to the Council of State.

The latter noted that the administrative justice had not sought to know on what date the decision to remove them from the classification had been "notified" to the castles and had therefore "committed an error of law".

The case is therefore referred again to the Bordeaux Administrative Court of Appeal, which will have to judge, this time on the merits, of the validity of this classification.

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