The Union des Caves du Médoc will celebrate its 17th anniversary this year. Born of the desire to do something together, in the extension of the natural cooperative spirit, it is perfectly in tune with the times.

A cooperative does not necessarily mean uniformity, quite the contrary. Indeed, with 490ha of vines and a total of 54 products, the average per wine is about 9ha!

With the aim of always satisfying our customers and expanding our range, the Union des Caves du Médoc strives to create new vintages.

Château moulin du ginestra and the 1933 collection: new wines at the union des caves du médoc

Château Moulin du Ginestra

Médoc AOC

• 80 % Cabernet Sauvignon, 20 % Petit Verdot
• 2 hectares on trace soil and clay-limestone
• PVC (retail price) : between 7 and 9 € TTC
• Fruity, spicy and fleshy
• Gold Medal Lyon 2021 +Gold Medal Féminalise 2021

Collection 1933

Pauillac AOC

• 51% Cabernet Sauvignon, 42 % Merlot, 7% Cabernet Franc and Petit Verdot
• Selection of 5 hectares on clay and gravel soils
• PVC (retail price) TTC : between 25€ and 30€
• Round, racy and silky
• Rare

for quality wines, original and luxurious packaging

We have created a new box to: revitalise our packaging, highlight our products, provide customers with attractive, top-of-the-range packaging and develop sales by the case vs. bottle.

• quality : double fluted carton with cradle
• mix and match on demand
• colourful, attractive and original packaging
• quality perceived by the terms bottles, collection and golden writing

Let’s end prejudices and preconceived ideas about cooperative wineries

As everyone knows, a cooperative winery is a structure that brings together independent winegrowers who are the owners of that very structure. As such, the winery does not buy the grapes or the must from the winemakers, but it transforms and sells it on their behalf.

An unjustified opposition

There will always be some bad apples, whether it be among cooperative or independent wineries – but let’s ignore them from the outset. For the others, which constitute the vast majority, the differences between cooperative wineries and independent winemakers are almost non-existent: they follow the same vinification methods, employ qualified staff, resort to the same consultants, and the same laboratories for their analyses; they all use high-performance work tools, and, above all, they all carefully select the grapes based on terroir, quality, and variety, and all adapt their vinification and ageing processes to all of the characteristics the grapes express, in order to offer a wide range of products.

Union des Caves du Médoc : a hand-made approach

40 different wines produced out of 350 hectares of vineyard, that is an average of 8.75 ha per product ! This is well below the average for the Médoc or Bordeaux regions, where some large independent estates, classified or not, can produce several hundred thousand bottles of just one type and brand. Our approach is therefore very far from being industrial – as for us, variety takes priority over quantity !

A rewarding track record

Another revealing fact: our results in national and international competitions, magazines, and guides. No less than 17 awards for the 2020 vintage.

Should the wines produced by cooperative wineries appear any less good just because their prices are affordable ?

cave la paroisse : deeply rooted in the region’s history

At the time of its founding in 1935, the Société coopérative de vinification (cooperative winery) in Saint-Seurin de Cadourne brought together a number of small winegrowers – including some Crus Bourgeois – whom the 1929 crisis would have condemned to disappear.

As strength lies in unity, they decided to put together both their harvests and their expertise, and first settled in a cellar that belonged to Château Grandis.

What a long way they have come since then ! Thanks to the quality of its terroirs and its wines, the winery has of course grown over the decades. Yet, with just 50 hectares of vineyards and 23 members, it remains a human-size structure, which produces a range of genuine Haut-Médoc wines.

Its vineyards sit alongside the prestigious Saint-Estèphe AOC to the south, and spread out, to the east, on gravelly hilltops that overlook the great Gironde river.

As the cooperative deems it crucial to let each specific terroir express itself through the wines, it offers a wide range of nearly 10 different products – which corresponds to an average of 5 hectares per product !

including the famous Grand Paroissien, La Paroisse, l’Elite de la Paroisse, Château Quimper, Château La Maletonne, Château La Chicane and Château Moulin de Ginestra.

Selling directly to the region’s customers is very important to La Paroisse – and who better than local connoisseurs and restaurateurs to judge of the excellent quality/price ratio of its wines ?

Being acknowledged by the local population is the best possible testimony to the fact that the winery has been able to listen, adapt, and work to offer the best at the right price. This is also what Médoc is all about ! Winemakers’ wines with character !

Selecting grapes based on parcels, on terroirs, and on their varieties, is of the essence.

The cooperative’s winemakers’ work then becomes complete when the grapes turn into wine in concrete vats and amphoras, after which the wines age in vats or oak barrels, which brings lovers of great wines a whole range of tastes, sensations, and experiences.

This year again, our wine-growers’ and cellar masters’ work has been rewarded. Nearly twenty medals, citations, and notes have been awarded to our latest vintages – mainly 2016, 2017, 2018, as well as 2019 nouveau wines.

It has indeed been a goal and a busy task, in recent years, to manage and lead the vineyards towards ever more environmentally friendly methods and practices. As of the 2019 vintage, more than half of the vines have been labeled HVE3 (High Environmental Value, 3rd Level), the highest level for this label.

It should also be noted that the average yield for the decade is well below the maximum yield allowed for this AOC, and yet the prices have remained stable !