Our Customers
Partners
Importers: the Linchpin of our Development
As with the majority of producers in our wine region, a large proportion of our production has long been appreciated by wine-lovers abroad.
Since our winery was founded in 1948, exports have accounted for just over half of our business. We still have one or two companies based in London from our original customer base.
Over the course of our history, and depending on the whims of geopolitics, our partnerships have evolved around the globe: Western Europe in the 1950s, Africa (Nigeria) in the late 1960s, the United States and the United Kingdom in the 1970s and 1980s, Asia in the 1990s, Eastern Europe in 2000 and China more recently.
Apart from a few European brands, most of our foreign partners are small or medium-sized companies, highly specialised in French wines. These partners have very different profiles, particularly in Europe. Most of them distribute our wines to restaurants or wine-lovers’ circles, and generally have a showroom shop.
Others are fast-growing mail-order professionals. Finally, there are larger companies that run a network of food stores or wine shops.
Quality and Volume
Central purchasing bodies: a factor for emulation and progress
Our cellar’s ability to mobilise relatively large volumes for our vineyards reinforces our image as a ‘natural supplier’ to central purchasing bodies.
Both in France and abroad, we work with major buying groups (national and European in scope) in the fields of general supermarket distribution, catering (integrated or with wholesale warehousing companies), specialist distribution (networks of wine merchants or delicatessens) and mail order.
For most of these partners, we work together to create a cuvée whose organoleptic characteristics continue from vintage to vintage, and for which the customer may, at their request, have exclusive rights. The packaging and boxing are also very often the subject of collaboration.
Partners and quality
Partners as a source of inspiration
For us, collaboration is a driving force for development and improvement.
In fact, some of the wine centres we work with encourage us to submit our vintages to the experts at competitions and renowned guides for their verdict. This kind request allows us to see the fruit of our labour rewarded each year by our peers or by tasting experts. Above all, these medals reward the work and passion of our teams.
It is sometimes after consultation with these partners that we have begun to reflect on our working methods and develop our expertise. These include the use of screw caps for foreign markets, the traceability process, and the adoption of methods enabling us to claim that our wines are ‘vegan-compatible’.
Prestige
Independent restaurants: a little less and always better
Our close collaboration with the world of gastronomy is as old as our cooperative.
However, it should be noted that over the decades, the world of traditional and independent catering has tended to become more restricted.
However, it is also evolving towards greater excellence, making us proud when our wines are offered on these prestigious tables.
It’s true that the volume of wine demanded by these artisans is limited, which allows us to offer cuvées of restricted volume, as in the case of organic wines, plot selections or wines produced from grapes from a single winemaker.
Historically, our relationships with the restaurant trade have been concentrated in the Île-de-France region (particularly Paris), but they have also developed in a number of European and Japanese cities.
