THE VIRTUAL WINE MUSEUM - LE MUSÉE VIRTUEL DU VIN

The Paris wine market, located on Quai Saint-Bernard along the Seine, had been since the mid-17th century the fiefdom of the capital’s wine merchants. The Halle was open, for a fee, to all wine merchants, foreign stallholders included. Better equipped and better situated on the Seine, the building replaced the port de la Tournelle nearby, where Parisian wine merchants had previously unloaded and stocked their wines. From the start of the 19th century, wine consumption in Paris rose. To deal with the demand, in 1808 the authorities decided to build a new wine market, which was completed in 1845. But its storage capacity turned out to be insufficient, and it was unable to cope with transport links facilitated by the railway.
 

That was why the government decided, in 1869, to have new warehouses built at Bercy, on the opposite bank of the Seine. In 1905, Parliament decided to mandate the larger wine merchants of Paris to be present at both the Bercy warehouses and the Paris wine market. Until the start of the 20th century, the two large Parisian warehouses enjoyed more or less the same importance. But the specialisation of the Saint-Bernard site towards fine wines and liquor, plus the expansion of Bercy in 1910, gave the latter a crucial edge. The merchants of Saint-Bernard would leave for Bercy for good in 1964.