In 1855, at the command of Napoleon III, the wine brokers of Bordeaux ranked the region’s greatest red estates into a hierarchy of “growths” that the wine world still lives by today. Four châteaux were placed at the very summit as First Growths. What almost no one expected is that an American had already named those same four estates — sixty-eight years earlier, in 17871.
That American was Thomas Jefferson, and his Bordeaux notebook reads like a leaked preview of a ranking that would not become official for another two generations4.
Quick facts
- Thomas Jefferson was U.S. minister to France from 1785 to 1789 and a passionate wine student.
- In 1787 he spent five days in Bordeaux ranking its finest estates.
- His four “first quality” wines were Margaux, Latour, Haut-Brion and Lafite.
- Those are exactly the four First Growths of the famous 1855 classification.
An American diplomat in France
From 1785 to 1789 Jefferson served as the United States’ minister to France, and he threw himself into the study of European wine with the same restless intensity he brought to architecture, science and gadgetry5. He toured the vineyards in person, filled notebooks with observations on soils, prices and producers, and afterward ordered wine directly from the châteaux — convinced, rightly, that anything bought through middlemen was liable to be watered or faked2.
Five days in Bordeaux
In May 1787 Jefferson spent five days in Bordeaux, methodically working out which estates stood at the very top, and why2. His notes single out “four vineyards of first quality,” naming the owners, the volumes they produced and the merchants who bought their wine — a precise snapshot of the market at a single moment in the 1780s, jotted down by a future president moonlighting as a wine critic4.
The four first growths — 68 years early
The four estates Jefferson placed at the top were Château Margaux, Château Latour, Château Haut-Brion and Château Lafite. In 1855, those were precisely the four red wines crowned as First Growths — the only change since being the promotion of Mouton Rothschild, decades later, in 19733:
| Château | Jefferson, 1787 | 1855 Classification |
|---|---|---|
| Margaux | First quality | First Growth |
| Latour | First quality | First Growth |
| Haut-Brion | First quality | First Growth |
| Lafite | First quality | First Growth |
| Mouton Rothschild | — | Elevated to First Growth in 1973 |
A serious customer
Jefferson did not just admire these wines — he bought them by the hundreds of bottles, and his devotion has echoed strangely down the centuries. He was especially attached to the sweet white Château d’Yquem, and his Monticello cellar became one of the most sophisticated in early America6. Two centuries later, bottles said to be engraved with his initials would ignite the greatest scandal in fine-wine collecting — the “Jefferson bottles” affair, in which one sold for a record price before its authenticity collapsed into doubt. Tellingly, one of the Bordeaux merchants recorded in his notes was an Irishman named Barton — one of the “Wine Geese” families who had come to dominate the trade2. (See also: Acker, America’s oldest wine shop.)
Why he was right
Jefferson was not clairvoyant — he was observant. The 1855 classification was built on the prices each château had commanded over decades, a hierarchy that had already been stable for the better part of a century by the time he arrived7. Jefferson simply read the same market signals early and wrote them down. His notebook is proof that the pecking order of Bordeaux’s claret was, in essence, already fixed long before anyone thought to make it official8.
Frequently asked questions
More from this day in wine history
See everything else that happened on September 16 — who was born, what was bottled, and which laws were signed.
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References
- Decanter (Jane Anson) — What Thomas Jefferson did in Bordeaux. www.decanter.com ↩
- Invisible Bordeaux — Wine-lover Thomas Jefferson’s five days in Bordeaux. invisiblebordeaux.blogspot.com ↩
- The Wine Cellar Insider — Bordeaux First Growth wine guide. www.thewinecellarinsider.com ↩
- American Association of Wine Economists — Thomas Jefferson on Wine. wine-economics.org ↩
- Encyclopædia Britannica — Thomas Jefferson. www.britannica.com ↩
- Monticello — Thomas Jefferson and wine. www.monticello.org ↩
- Encyclopædia Britannica — Médoc. www.britannica.com ↩
- InForum — How the wines of Bordeaux impressed Thomas Jefferson. www.inforum.com ↩
Recommended reading
Benjamin Wallace
The gripping true story of the “Jefferson bottles” — the most expensive wine ever sold, and the doubts that swirled around Jefferson’s name.
Hugh Johnson
A masterly history of wine, excellent on Bordeaux, its 1855 classification, and the making of its reputation.
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