bulk containers, he may age the wine further, blend in other wines or simply bottle and sell it as is. The result is sold under the name of the négociant, not the name of the original grape or wine producer. Some négociants have a recognizable house style. Négociants, who are also called wine merchants/traders, were the dominant force in the wine trade until the last 25 years for various reasons: Historically the owners of vineyards and producers of wine had no direct access to buyers. It was too expensive for growers to purchase the wine presses and bottling lines necessary to produce a finished wine. Owning only a small portion of a particular high-quality single vineyard (lieu-dit) meant that a grower often had insufficient wine from a parcel to vinify on its own. Under French inheritance laws, vineyard holdings were often split until offspring owned no more than a single row of grapes, not enough to fill a barrel. Since prices for a premier cru are typically higher than for wines from a larger area like a village or region, the grower could make more money selling off the production as the premier cru rather than blending it into a less specific appellation. Many négociants are also vineyard owners in their own right. In Burgundy for instance, négociants as Bouchard Père et Fils and Faiveley are among the largest owners of vineyards. Well-known négociants in Burgundy are Maison Louis Jadot, Joseph Drouhin, and Vincent Girardin; in Beaujolais, Georges Duboeuf; in Provence, Mirabeau; and in the Rhône region, Guigal, Jaboulet, Jean-Luc Colombo, Chapoutier, and Famille Perrin. See also Oenology Vignerons indépendants de France Viticulture Wine fraud Winemaking cooperative References External links The new vignerons: a new generation of Spanish viticulteurs Luis Gutiérrez, Wine Advocate''. Wine terminology Viticulture