Cruse, the most patrician and numerous of the merchant families who occupied the Quai des Chartrons, playing an important part in the bordeaux trade in wine. Hermann Cruse came to Bordeaux in 1819 from Schleswig-Holstein and opened his office in the Chartrons. The family’s fortune was made in 1848 and 1849, when Cruse made a vast speculation on the 1847 vintage, described by the brokers Tastet & Lawton as ‘very abundant, exquisite but not big’. Since 1848 was the year of revolution in France when Louis-Philippe fled to England, and revolutions broke out in Germany, wine prices slumped. Cruse bought no fewer than 13,650 tonneaux from 130 crus, nearly all médoc and particularly crus bourgeois for the German market.
