Wine warehouses of Bercy
[1] This royal decree allowed the wines to not be subject to the octroi (a municipal tax collected on various products brought into a district for local consumption or use)[2] and set in motion the commercial development of Bercy and its port.
The district replaced an area that had formerly been occupied by private mansions built by wealthy Parisians on the edge of the Seine in a location that was, at the time, removed from the hustle and bustle of central Paris.
These estates were sold by their owners at the end of the 18th century as the growing population of Paris pushed outside the city walls.
Thus, the sumptuous mansions on the rue de Bercy and the buildings in the magnificent parks that surrounded them were gradually demolished during the first half of the 19th century.
[1][3] In 1809, Mr. de Chabons, mayor of the town of Bercy, acquired an estate, the Petit Château, where he established cellars and a cooperage workshop.
This complex was bought in 1815 by Louis Gallois (successor to Mr. de Chabons as mayor of Bercy), who enlarged the cellars and subdivided the land, giving the main road the name of rue Gallois and the other service roads the first names of members of his family.
In 1819, Baron Louis, Minister of Finance created warehouses on the land he owned between the Petit Château estate and rue de la Grange aux Merciers (the location of the current Saint-Émilion courtyard).
[7] Despite the construction of a new wine market between 1811 and 1845, Bercy’s storage capacity proved insufficient to cope with the growth of consumption and the development of transport by rail.
In 1860, the commune of Bercy, until then independent, was dissolved, with some of it becoming part of the 12th arrondissement of Paris and the rest being incorporated into the city of Charenton.
[2] Normally, under the laws governing taxation of commerce, the Bercy warehouses located inside Paris should have been immediately subject to duties on wines coming from the provinces (since they were no longer eligible for Louis XVI’s dispensation).
However, after hearing the protests of the newly Parisian merchants, the public authorities decided to allow a transition period of 10 years.
Its mandate was twofold: 1) to draw up plans for a new road system and infrastructure in and around the Bercy complex (which also involved an element of flood control); and 2) to build the so-called réel warehouses (that would be publicly owned and rented by the wine merchants).
[6] The district had its own distinctive culture stemming from its mix of the working- and merchant-classes, all involved in the commerce of wines and spirits.
[10] The area containing these warehouses was profoundly restructured, beginning with the construction of the Bercy Arena (1984) and later of the Ministry of the Economy and Finance (1990).
[2] In 1985, a few of Bercy’s wine warehouses were added to the Supplementary Inventory of Historic Monuments, including the Lheureux cellars in which Les Pavillons de Bercy-Musée des Arts Forains took over in 1996.
