For this 17th episode of the Wine Makers Show, we sit down with Emmanuel Coiffe, the CEO of Eugen Grand Vin. Vin sur Vin pushes open the doors of the négoce world so you can discover it with us. We talk about beautiful wines for your wine cellar. Enjoy the listen.
Can you start by introducing yourself?
First, thanks for taking an interest in Eugen. I’m Emmanuel Coiffe, I run Eugen, a négociant based in Bordeaux for about twenty years now. The company was founded by Eugène Raoux, a charismatic figure well known in Bordeaux. We work in the grand vins de Bordeaux segment, and specifically the grand crus classés.
How did your passion for wine start?
I got into the négoce business at 23. I was lucky enough to join a big house, and my boss put me in charge of developing European markets. I started traveling a lot across Europe to sell and grow those markets. It’s a people-driven job and I loved it right away. You get to meet people from every walk of life. When you’re young and just starting out, it’s a great learning experience and a real pleasure. I then moved to another négociant house where I spent 2 years in Hong Kong, covering 17 countries from there. It was an amazing experience. At the time, the Chinese market was just starting to really evolve, this was 2011. There was a huge appetite for information. The Chinese wanted to understand wine. In 2014, I decided to go solo. I worked for 4 years on my own buying and selling wine. In 2018, I reconnected with Monsieur Raoux and we worked out an arrangement.
Did you already know wine before your first experience in the négoce world?
I come from a wine family. My family owns several crus classés, including Château Ducru Beaucaillou. My grandfather was Jean Eugen Borie. He was a major figure in his time and people still talk to me about him. His memory and his impact on his children were huge. We played the tasting game a lot. I remember a Château Palmer 1975 that stirred something really powerful in me. We were just tasting because we were 6 or 7 years old. We spent vacations at Ducru Beaucaillou but I grew up in Limoges.
What does it feel like at 23 to be traveling all over Europe selling wine?
At 23 you’re not afraid of anything. I was very enthusiastic. It wasn’t easy. I didn’t quite realize at the time that we were in a financial crisis. I traveled and worked relentlessly with a lot of passion. I became a good salesperson.
Then you headed to Hong Kong in 2011?
Import taxes on wine were dropped to 0 in 2008. Hong Kong became the hub for wine in Asia. It’s a real hub for wine and fine wine. London and Bordeaux are also very strong hubs. I stayed there for 2 years. The Chinese were really hungry to understand. They genuinely wanted to know wine. We tried to support them, bring property owners over. I’ve kept ties out there with very specialized people. We listen to them at Eugen and we try to supply them as best we can.
You created your own négoce company right after?
The business starts slowly because you need capital. I’d buy cases of wine and resell them. There were a lot of logistical gears running alongside: you need specialized warehouses, transporters, banking partners and so on. All of that adds richness to the job. The aftercare of the wine is really important: you can’t just release wine into the wild.
Let’s get to Eugen. Can you introduce the company?
It was founded by Eugène Raoux. He built the company by working with private clients from business networks and the entertainment world. I arrived a year and a half ago. The foundations are there and we need to grow them. We did a big tasting in Paris in November 2019 with more than 50 grand crus represented. I’ll remember that evening for a long time. We’d made that promise with Eugène Raoux to mark the transition.
Do you buy stock directly from the producers you represent?
Bordeaux has the en primeur system. It’s an old system that lets winemakers sell part of their wine while it’s still in barrel. It brings in cash. It’s an ancestral system that keeps the trade alive. We have the option to buy allocations, meaning a certain number of bottles from each château. En primeur has become a major event with close to 6,000 or 7,000 people coming to Bordeaux. Everyone in this world gathers and it lasts a week. Apparently the 2019 vintage isn’t bad at all. Négociants buy volume while the wine is still in barrel and offer it to their clients. It’s bottled a year and a half later and made available to négociants within two years. We then dispatch it to our clients.
Can a private individual take part in en primeur?
The en primeur tastings are reserved for the trade. But private individuals can buy en primeur. For example, Eugen sells en primeur to private clients. The en primeur system creates value. You buy wines at a price that’s normally advantageous compared to what the wine will cost on the open market. There can be a financial motivation to invest in wine. There’s also the practical side of being able to pick a wide range of wines from crus you won’t necessarily find later. When you buy en primeur, you’re buying something physical that just isn’t in front of you yet. Within two years, you get your cases and can resell them for whatever reason. You can offer them to your négociant or to any other merchant. Today you can order en primeur, we contact you when it’s ready, and if we don’t deliver to you we can keep them in a partner cellar.
Do you have any key figures on Eugen?
No, I prefer to keep a bit of mystery.
Have you seen changes in customer consumption habits?
Yes, of course. You see it pretty directly when you go for a glass at a wine bar. Expectations and demand have evolved. People are looking for more immediate wines, they’re really into organic wine. All of this involves younger consumers. They want to understand what they’re drinking and that’s pretty wonderful. I work hard to evolve the range when we offer wines to restaurants or wine bars. We look for winemakers who match those criteria. I really encourage these establishments to come and ask us. We get requests every day and we work to find the right solution.
What’s Eugen’s relationship like with producers?
We’re very close. I was in Saint Julien this lunchtime, for instance. You have to taste, listen, understand the vintage. You have to see people a lot. You also need to travel, go see clients. We’re always split between suppliers and customers. We’re the sales arm for the producers so we feed back to them every piece of information we can.
How does it work selling wine?
There are a lot of ways to sell wine. Wine is a living product, it needs to be tasted. Right now we’re pushing the rosés from Château d’Esclans in Aquitaine. Everyone knows these rosés are very good but we still owe it to the wine to have people taste them. That’s really important.
What are Eugen’s ambitions?
When you take over a company, you want to consolidate what’s there and bring people into your project. That’s already a huge job. You have to lay the groundwork for tomorrow’s growth: strengthen market share, broaden the client base. My ambitions don’t stop at France. I want to sell wine all over the world. We can think about extending the range of wines on offer. We’re ready to offer different wines, and ideally great ones.
The counterfeit question often comes up when we talk about fine wines
Bordeaux fine wines have faced counterfeiting for a long time. We support the châteaux and we try to be as transparent as possible. It’s very hard to spot a counterfeit bottle. There are now companies that put chips on cases. There used to be the pale copies and the very good counterfeits. There are notorious crooks out there and most people have fallen for them. There was one person auctioning wines he was making in his kitchen. The damage runs into tens of millions of euros. It was an absolute scandal.
Do you have a wine book you’d recommend?
Two things come to mind right away. There’s a very famous Japanese manga called Drops of God which boosted a lot of fine wines among Japanese consumers. It’s super important to know this series when you’re into wine because it played a crucial cultural role. The wines featured in the manga became commercial successes in Japan.
Something a bit more serious is the Féret. It’s a guide that catalogs every property and vineyard in the entire Bordeaux region. It was really formative for me.
Do you have a favorite recent tasting?
I have loads. There’s a very old vineyard in Hungary, in Tokaj. There are some sweet wines there that are really interesting to discover.
Do you have someone to recommend for upcoming episodes?
Yes, I’m thinking of someone in Saint Émilion: Xavier Jean. He owns Couvent des Jacobins. It’s a historic property. It’s a cru classé he’s taking over from his aunt. What he’s going to do there is worth following. Going further: Eugen Grand Vin website
