A négociant is the French

French language

French is a Romance language spoken as a first language in France, the Romandy region in Switzerland, Wallonia and Brussels in Belgium, Monaco, the regions of Quebec and Acadia in Canada, and by various communities elsewhere. Second-language speakers of French are distributed throughout many parts...

 term for a wine

Wine

Wine is an alcoholic beverage, made of fermented fruit juice, usually from grapes. The natural chemical balance of grapes lets them ferment without the addition of sugars, acids, enzymes, or other nutrients. Grape wine is produced by fermenting crushed grapes using various types of yeast. Yeast...

 merchant who assembles the produce of smaller growers and winemakers and sells the result under its own name.

Négociants buy everything from grape

Grape

A grape is a non-climacteric fruit, specifically a berry, that grows on the perennial and deciduous woody vines of the genus Vitis. Grapes can be eaten raw or they can be used for making jam, juice, jelly, vinegar, wine, grape seed extracts, raisins, molasses and grape seed oil. Grapes are also...

s to grape must

Must

Must is freshly pressed fruit juice that contains the skins, seeds, and stems of the fruit. The solid portion of the must is called pomace; it typically makes up 7%–23% of the total weight of the must. Making must is the first step in winemaking...

 to wines in various states of completion. In the case of grapes or must, the négociant performs virtually all the winemaking. If it buys already fermented wine in barrels or 'en-vrac'—basically in bulk containers, it 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 press
  Fruit press
  A fruit press is a device used to separate fruit solids - stems, skins, seeds, pulp, leaves, and detritus - from fruit juice.-Cider press:A cider press is used to crush apples or pears...
  
  es and bottling line
  Bottling line
  Bottling lines are production lines that fill a product, generally a beverage, into bottles on a large scale.-Wine bottling process:The first step in bottling wine is depalletising, where the empty wine bottles are removed from the original pallet packaging delivered from the manufacturer, so that...
  
  s necessary to produce a finished wine.
• Owning only a small portion of a particular high-quality single vineyard (lieu-dit
  Lieu-dit
  Lieu-dit is a French toponymic term referring to an uninhabited place yet bearing a name...
  
  ) 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
  Barrel
  A barrel or cask is a hollow cylindrical container, traditionally made of vertical wooden staves and bound by wooden or metal hoops. Traditionally, the barrel was a standard size of measure referring to a set capacity or weight of a given commodity. A small barrel is called a keg.For example, a...
  
  . 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

Burgundy wine

Burgundy wine is wine made in the Burgundy region in eastern France, in the valleys and slopes west of the Saône River, a tributary of the Rhône. The most famous wines produced here - those commonly referred to as "Burgundies" - are red wines made from Pinot Noir grapes or white wines made from...

 for instance, négociants as Bouchard Père et Fils

Bouchard Père et Fils

Bouchard Père et Fils is a French wine grower, négociant and producer based in Beaune, in the Côte de Beaune wine-growing region of Burgundy, France....

 and Faiveley are among the largest owners of vineyards. Well-known examples in Burgundy are Louis Jadot

Louis Jadot

Maison Louis Jadot is a wine company that produces and markets Burgundy wine. Louis Jadot operates both their own vineyards and has a négociant business...

, Joseph Drouhin and Vincent Girardin, in Beaujolais Georges Duboeuf

Georges Duboeuf

Georges Duboeuf is the founder of Les Vins Georges Duboeuf, one of the largest and best-known wine merchants in France...

 and Guigal

Guigal

Guigal, formally Établissements Guigal, is a winery and négociant business situated in Ampuis in the northern part of the Rhône region in France. Guigal produces wine from appellations across the Rhône region, but is particularly noted for their Côte-Rôtie wines and played a pioneering role in...

, Jean-Luc Colombo and Jaboulet in the Rhône

Rhône (wine region)

The Rhône wine region in Southern France is situated in the Rhône river valley and produces numerous wines under various Appellation d'origine contrôlée designations...

.