Bordeaux Across Borders: The Innovative Trading Strategies of J. Calvet & Co. in the First Wave of Wine Globalization

Abstract

Bordeaux wine was traded to Northern Europe and Britain throughout the early modern period. In the early nineteenth century, the family company J. Calvet & Co was founded in the Rhone Valley and by mid-century relocated to Bordeaux. This company’s atypical inter-regionalism became the basis for its successful international expansion from the 1860s. Then, from the 1880s to the First World War, the third generation of the Calvet family further extended supply networks and outlets in Europe and America. The Calvet strategy of sending family agents and other trusted employees overseas and a marked diversification in the sources of wine they sold to wine retailers enabled the firm to strengthen its position despite production crises and rising competition. By focusing on this innovative family firm, the present essay offers a new perspective on the emergence of a modern, global wine market centered in Bordeaux.

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