At Safriel House, we create a continuum from grapes to wine, preferring to make the wine close to the vineyard. This maintains the freshness of the grapes and reduces the carbon footprint by not trucking grapes around wine country. We believe in keeping and supporting these long term relationships, which allows a focus on quality farming and winemaking, fostering community and authenticity.  

At a high level, there are two basic roles needed to produce wine. The first is growing the grapes, which is the job of the grower, or viticulturalist and the second is making the wine; done by the winemaker, or vigneron. Domaines (also called Chateaux in Bordeaux and Estates everywhere else) undertake both roles, while Négociants only take on the latter. 
Domaines range from small, family-owned operations producing a few hundred bottles a year to internationally acclaimed (and wildly expensive) producers like Domaine de la Romanée Conti. Unlike the vast chateaux of Bordeaux, even the most prestigious of Burgundy's domaines produce only a few thousand cases per year.

The Origin of Négociants

Napoleon era equal inheritance laws in France have slowly partitioned Burgundy's family-run vineyards over the last couple hundred years. Today, vineyard plots are still generally small, with many as small as a single row of vines. In South Africa, the opposite exists where vineyard subdivision is prohibited below a minimum size meaning that farms produce far more grapes than they can use for their own production.
This is where the négociant comes in: they purchase grapes, pressed juice or unfinished wine from vineyards that couldn't make their own wine due to production that was too small to make viably or too large to manage. The négociant then makes or blends, bottles, markets, and sells the wine themselves. 

Domaines vs. Négociants

The designation of Domaine in France, or Estate in South Africa and the US, is reserved exclusively for wines that were grown and bottled by the same entity. Ever the sticklers for detail, French labeling laws require that wines made from purchased grapes are sold under the label of Maison - the French term for house, or family. While France is the only country to require the distinction of ‘Maison’ on the label, the  practice has been taken up in many wine regions around the world and hence our name "Safriel House".

Négociant means trader in French. Also known as a wine merchant but not wine shop owner. They buy grapes, grape juice, or fermented wine from growers and vineyards. Then they bottle them, label them, and sell them. Historically, négociants were looked down upon compared to estates. But that opinion is no longer in vogue. Wine négociants assume the expenses of winemaking, bottling, packaging, marketing, and transacting. That way estate owners can focus on growing the best grapes. 

Types of Négociant

There are two ways wine négociants go about their business. One type is called standard wine négociants, and the other is a négociant-éleveur. 

Standard Wine Négociants

The most well-trod wine négociant strategy is buying complete wine in bulk then bottling it and selling it wholesale. This leaves the harvesting, crushing, pressing, fermentation, and clarification all to the grower, vineyard, or winemaker. The role of the négociant in this setup is packaging, marketing, and sales.

Négociant-Éleveur

Éleveur means breeder in French. A négociant-éleveur, then, means a wine merchant and developer. These are the négociants that acquire grapes or unfermented wine juice and do their winemaking effectively from scratch. It is, perhaps unsurprisingly, the most difficult and prestigious négociant.
Safriel House works as a South African Négociant-Éleveur