First Lady of Wine
by Ranjith Chandrasiri

One of the most distinguished personalities in the male dominated world of wine is a remarkable woman - Baroness Philippine de Rothschild, the Chairperson of Baron Philippe de Rothschild SA - one of the leading family owned wine dynasties in the world. She is a powerful businesswoman, a high profile ambassador for Bordeaux - the Mecca of wine and the most respected member of the Primum Familiae Vini (First families of Wine).

Unlike other female Rothschilds of her generation she is an accomplished actress and a successful businesswoman. She insists; "People think Rothschild women spend their day lounging around reading magazines. My lifestyle is different, I work everyday and I am a busy businesswoman."

Philippine was a child in occupied France during the Second World War. Her father joined the Free French in London under General de Gaulle. Her mother, the first Baroness Philippe, was captured by the Gestapo in 1944 and deported to Ravensbrück where she died in 1945.
Growing up with a passion for the theatre, Philippine studied acting in Paris and graduated from Conservatoire National d'Art Dramatique in 1958. She was a member of France's prestigious national theater La Comédie Française, for a decade working with stars such as Catherine Deneuve.

In 1973, Philippine starred in one of the leading roles in a French adaptation of Hal Ashby's film Harold and Maud and toured with the production for several years. "I was an employee and got paychecks. Not many Rothschilds have received paychecks," she says. During the 1980s she gradually withdrew from her stage career to take an active part in the family business.

Ancestry of Mouton Rothschild wine dynasty dates back to 1853, when Baron Nathaniel, one of the sons of Baron Nathan bought Château Brane Mouton, an estate in Pauillac in the heart of Médoc and gave it his own name - Château Mouton Rothschild.

When Baron Nathaniel died in 1870, his son Baron James and grandson Baron Henri in turn inherited the property but neither showed much interest in the art of wine making. In 1922, at the age of 20 Philippe de Rothschild, the youngest son of Baron Henri took the destiny of Mouton in hand and in just two years revolutionized the method of bottling and labeling the wines that many other great Bordeaux châteaux would follow.

Until then, for a century or more, Bordeaux châteaux had shipped their new wine in barrels to merchants' warehouses in the city. The merchants then aged the wine, bottled and sold it around the world often featuring the merchant's name prominently as the château's. Philippe didn't favour this system, he wanted to assure the customer that each bottle was an authentic product of his château and decided that he would take the responsibility for the entire process and bottle his wine at the château. In his 1981 autobiography, "Vivre la Vigne, he wrote " "My wine must leave my château in my bottles with my labels"

To accomplish his vision he had to overcome several challenges. First of all, he needed a new barrel-aging facility big enough to hold two entire harvests since the wine needed to be aged in barrels for two years. So Rothschild built the Grand Chai, 100 meters long cathedral-like space that subsequently served as a model for many other chateaux.

Next was the label. At that time, most labels were small, insipid and often with just text only. Philippe wanted to make an unmistakable statement about his labels and hired Jean Carlu, a fashionable commercial artist to design a new label. The Carlu label was revolutionary, in bold red, black and gold; it featured a fierce ram's head, the symbol of Mouton, and five arrows, the Rothschild family emblem. To emphasize that the wine was bottled at the estate, the now-familiar words "Mis en bouteille au château" was also added to the label.

The criticism of the Carlu label was severe; it was too much of a blow to the tradition. So after three vintages, he went back to a simple design of text and gold. But labels would never be the same in Bordeaux, in the 1930s and '40s many châteaux experimented with their labels, trying photography and new typefaces.

In 1945, returning from an exile that had taken him as a prisoner, refugee and a soldier through Spain, Morocco and England, Philippe turned again to the label to make his statement, choosing Philippe Jullian to create it - to let the world know that Mouton had survived the war. Mouton adorned its 1945 label with the now-famous "Victory" insignia, and since then every vintage's label has borne a distinctive work of original art by a contemporary artist - Picasso, Warhol, Cocteau, Chagall, Dali, Miró and Balthus among them.

Perhaps the most famous of all, Pablo Picasso created the label in 1973, the year Philippe finally succeeded in his lifelong quest to have Mouton elevated to first-growth status.
As the label series took on greater importance, Rothschild became choosy about the stature of the painters and the quest for labels became a full-time job. So Philippine mostly took it over. Realizing that both art and wine are now global businesses, she reached out to new frontiers seeking more international artists and sculptors.
In 1981, Philippine decided to exhibit the labels and the artwork.

Working with Xavier de Eizaguirre, the current Managing Director of Mouton, she assembled all the labels and gathered the original artist's idea along with the sentimentality of the personal attachment that linked each artist with Mouton. "Mouton Rothschild Paintings for the Labels" has been recognized as a serious collection of art on its own and exhibited in museums around the world.

After opening in 1981 at the Contemporary Art Museum of Montreal, the exhibition moved to Japan, Scotland, England and all across the United States before closing in Berlin in 1992.
The series of artist wine labels is just the tip of the iceberg when it comes to Mouton-Rothschild and fine art. Baroness Philippine herself is an accomplished artist in her own right and the late Baron Philippe was a keen collector of works of art related to wine. His collection, which is displayed in the wine museum on the château ground, ranges from ancient Persia to Ming dynasty China to Renaissance Europe, from pottery to painting to precious stones, from tiny enamels to enormous tapestries. All are somehow related to wine.

Among the most impressive objects on display are a 16th-century German nautilus-form drinking cup, a gilt-mounted seashell, a 15th-century French tapestry showing the grape harvest, and a squat pottery fellow in a snap-brim hat chugging a cup of wine. It is always a delight to visit château Mouton and every time I go to Bordeaux I don't miss the opportunity to visit the art museum, the Grand Chai, where the barrels of new wine are kept and the dusty, mysterious cellar that holds the château's library of old bottles.

Baroness Philippine inherited the Mouton Rothschild wine dynasty including three estates in Bordeaux - first-growth Château Mouton Rothschild and two fifth-growths, Château d'Armailhac and Clerc Milon- as well as Mouton-Cadet, Bordeaux's largest-selling négociant brand when her father died in 1988. She has the distinction of being Chevalier de la Légion d'Honneur and Commandeur des Arts et Lettres.
Succeeding the legendary Baron wasn't an easy task but Philippine, with her natural flair and sharp acumen has steered the family company, doubling the sales since she took over. She is not thinking of retirement yet but when she does retire, she expects her two sons to take over the business. Philippe is a businessman and Julien is an artist. She expects that they will compliment each other. "They have different fields of activities. Philippe is into finance, Julien could be into the labels, the (Mouton) museum, and why not, the winemaking"

During a recent meeting with the Baroness, I learned that she is especially fond of South East Asia and has visited Thailand several times but never been to Pattaya. Naturally I extended her an invitation to visit our wine club and hope we will have the opportunity to host the first lady of wine as an honoured guest of the Royal Cliff Wine Club in the near future.