First Great Growth

First Growth (French: Premier Cru) status is a classification of wines primarily from the Bordeaux region of France.

The need for a classification of the best Bordeaux wines arose from the 1855 Exposition Universelle de Paris. The result was the Bordeaux Wine Official Classification of 1855, a list of the top ranked wines, named the Grand Crus Classés (Great Classified Growths). With several thousand different Chateaux producing their own wines in Bordeaux, to be classified was to carry a mark of high prestige.

Within the Grand Cru Classé list, wines were further ranked and placed in one of five divisions. The best of the best wines were assigned the highest rank of Premier Cru; only four wines, Château Latour, Château Lafite Rothschild, Château Margaux and Château Haut-Brion were deemed worthy. Of all the 61 great classified wines, all but one came from the Médoc region. The exception was the premier cru Château Haut-Brion, produced in Graves.

The 1855 list remained unchanged for over a hundred years until finally Mouton Rothschild was promoted to Premier Cru status in 1973, after decades of relentless lobbying by its powerful owner, Baron Philippe de Rothschild. Of lesser importance, in 1988 the premier cru Château Haut-Brion was changed in appellation from Graves to Pessac-Leognan to represent apparent changes in soil structure caused by the urbanisation of areas surrounding Bordeaux.

Also in 1855, 21 of the best sweet wines from Bordeaux were classified as Grand Crus Classés in a separate list. In the original classification, 9 wines (primarily from the Sauternes and Barsac regions) were classed as Premier Cru, while 11 were assigned the lower (though still prestigious) rank of Deuxième Cru (Second Growth). One wine (Château d'Yquem) was considered so great it was granted a special Premier Cru Supérieur classification.

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