AmericanWinery.com

A category for châteaux of the Médoc that ranks just below that of cru classé. When the Classification of 1855 was completed, thousands of châteaux had been excluded. The cru bourgeois category was created as a means of including the best of these. In 1932 the first list of cru bourgeois châteaux was created by the Bordeaux Chamber of Commerce. It included 444 châteaux classified in three categories. The highest ranking—cru bourgeois supérieurs exceptionnel (sometimes called cru exceptionnel or cru bourgeois exceptionnel)—originally included only six châteaux and was limited to those from the area in the Haut-Médoc where the cru classé châteaux were located. The next category was cru bourgeois supérieurs with 99 châteaux; the third category was cru bourgeois with 339 châteaux. However, châteaux in any of these three categories may only use the term “cru bourgeois” on their wine labels. An organization known as Syndicat des Crus Bourgeois updated this list in 1966 and again in 1978. However, their list includes only member châteaux, which eliminates many good châteaux who choose not to join. The Syndicat’s 1978 list included 127 châteaux, of which only 18 are included in the top category. Ranked below crus Bourgeois is a category that’s rarely used—cru artisan.