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First Listing of the Classification

When: 18 April 1855
Where: Bordeaux wine region (regional context)
Part of: Bordeaux Wine Official Classification of 1855 first listed

Brokers listed the 19th-century names on April 18, 1855, establishing the official ranking for the Exposition Universelle.

The classification resulted from Emperor Napoleon III's request for a system to display France's best Bordeaux wines. Wines were ranked from first to fifth growths based on price. The brokers' list on April 18, 1855, defined the initial hierarchy.

Sources

Bordeaux Wine Official Classification of 1855 Wikipedia, revision of 2026-05-24
Bordeaux wine Wikipedia, revision of 2026-07-21

Machine-drafted from the cited Wikipedia passages and checked by a reviewing model, not by a human editor. Every passage cites the revision it was written from; dates and places follow those passages.