Béatrice Cointreau

Béatrice Cointreau is a French-American businesswoman in the wine and spirits industry. She spent more than a decade as chief executive of Gosset, one of the oldest Champagne houses in France, and earlier served as general director of Cognac Frapin, both within her family's Groupe Renaud-Cointreau.

Early life and family

Cointreau was the sixth of seven children. Her mother descended from the family that owned the Frapin cognac estate in the Grande Champagne subregion of Cognac, France, and worked as a genealogist who traced the family's history back to the year 1270; a date Cointreau later used as the name of a cognac-inspired perfume she created.

Education

Cointreau holds degrees in law, business, and marketing, along with a Master of Business Administration from Cornell University. She also studied viticulture at the University of Bordeaux's Institute of Oenology and trained in perfumery at ISIPCA. She is also a graduate of ISG Institut Supérieur de Gestion.

Groupe Renaud-Cointreau, Gosset, and Frapin

Cointreau's early career was built within Groupe Renaud-Cointreau, the company that combined her father's family's Cointreau liqueur business with her mother's family's Frapin cognac estate. She spent 22 years as general director of Cognac Frapin and 13 years as chief executive of Champagne Gosset; indicating that her roles began around 1984 and 1993, respectively. Renaud-Cointreau family acquired Gosset in 1993 and credited Cointreau with streamlining the house's Champagne range and packaging, the same article notes that her brother, Jean-Pierre Cointreau, later took over leadership of the house.

At Gosset, Cointreau developed prestige cuvées including Rabelais; coverage of her 2011 Légion d'honneur ceremony described her as having simultaneously led Gosset and served as general director of Frapin.

byBC Ventures and Admirable Family Vineyards

By 2011, French press described Cointreau as heading BY BC, an investment and consulting firm focused on wine and spirits. A business-profile published by Aspioneer states that the firm was established in Europe in 2007, opened a U.S. office in 2012, and later became byBC Ventures; the same profile describes the firm's use of what it calls SIFT practices safe, inclusive, fair, and transparent and states that three of Cointreau's children, Maximilien, Alexandre, and Adrien, have since joined the firm in financial, operating, and business-development roles, respectively.

Cointreau relocated to Malibu, California, around 2012 to be closer to her two eldest sons. In 2013 she purchased a parcel of land there for about $3.2 million and began developing what became Admirable Family Vineyards, later adding an adjacent lot in 2015. The vineyard grew organic, dry-farmed grapes, including Viognier, Cabernet Sauvignon, and Chardonnay. In 2015 she also created a Champagne label, Tresor de France, based in Reims.

In August 2017, Cointreau listed the roughly five-acre Malibu estate, including the vineyard and a 6,635-square-foot house, for $12.5 million, telling a real estate trade publication she planned to concentrate on her Champagne business in France.

Writing and public engagement

Cointreau has written several books on wine and business, including Sens et Quintessence (Éditions Glénat, 2009), Le Paradoxe du Vin Bio (Éditions du Rocher, 2014), C'est si Bon… Paris la Nuit (Éditions du Chêne, 2014), and Organic Wine: A Marketer's Guide (Palgrave Macmillan, 2016), along with the ebooks Proud to be Californian and Malibu is Admirable (both 2016).

Awards and honors

• Chevalier, Ordre du Mérite Agricole; recognized for her contributions to sustainable agriculture, including support for California producers affected by phylloxera.
• Chevalier, Légion d'honneur; named in 2011, with the insignia presented at a ceremony in Paris on November 4 of that year.
• "Most Inspiring Woman Leader," Women Magazine, 2022.