The commercial side of Bordeaux wines has traditionally been the concern of negociants. They have sold the wine to various importers around the world as well as to French customers, including several bottlers, who in turn have become negociants, in practice. The importance of Bordeaux is clear: it is the world's largest quality wine producing area. Less well-known Bordeaux wines are mainly sold in bulk. For these wines, trademarks and brands are becoming increasingly important. Various negociants are promoting such trademarks, often at quite high prices, in a way investing in these brands. For negociants as well as for national supermarket chains it is becoming increasingly important to source the wine, i.e. the grapes, in order to secure quality and consistency. In Europe more and more negociants are working with wine-producing co-operatives and consultants to produce the wine that they want. This is the case especially when we look at white wines. In particular, large supermarket chains are trying to raise the quality of their house wines by hiring their own consultants. These consultants could be called either "flying winemakers", travelling around the various wine producing areas of the world, or "hands-on winemakers" who stay in the local area and have closer contact with the producers from whom they buy their raw material.
The "Bordeaux way" of trading has meant that the wine producer himself has had very little involvement in actually selling the wines. He has been, until now, a grower of grapes which have been sold either to the co-operatives or directly to the negociants, for wines which are mostly blended into generic Bordeaux wines. These wines are not at all necessarily bad in quality, but there is the risk that they have hardly been made with personality in mind.
With the built-in system of marketers and blenders buying the wine to sell on, there is less incentive to try to produce quality wines, since it generally means sacrificing quantity. Today the market is very price-orientated, meaning that in quite a few cases the maximum allowed amounts are produced, in order to gain maximum returns on annual crops. Quantity has in many cases replaced quality as the negociants have pressed for lower prices and the producers have in turn produced more wine, in worst cases making rather diluted wines of low quality.
There are price quotes in various wine journals to show how the prices of different wines have developed in different vintages and appellations.
Bulk wine prices in Bordeaux
Prices are €/tonneaux (= 900 litres)
| Appellation | 2006 Vintage | 2007 Vintage |
| Bordeaux Rouge | 950 / 1100 | 900 / 1100 |
| 1eres Côtes de Bordeaux Rouge | 950 / 1100 | 950 / 1100 |
| Médoc | 2000 / 2200 | 1900 / 2200 |
| Haut Médoc | 2300 / 2500 | 2000 / 2400 |
| Graves Rouge | 1200 / 1000 | |
| Saint Emilion | 3200 / 3500 | |
| Bordeaux Blanc sec | 900 / 1000 | |
| Graves Blanc | 1200 / 1500 | |
| Sauternes | 5300 / 5800 |
Prices are for March 2008. One tonneau of wine is 900 litres.
Averages taken from "L'Union Girondine des Vins de Bordeaux", May 2008.
