Philippe de Rothschild

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Bust of Philippe de Rothschild, Château Mouton-Rothschild

Baron Georges Philippe de Rothschild (born April 13, 1902 in Paris ; † January 20, 1988 ibid) was a French entrepreneur, racing car driver and owner of the Château Mouton-Rothschild winery in Pauillac near Bordeaux .

He was the great-grandson of Baron Nathaniel de Rothschild , who in 1853 acquired the estate as Château Brane Mouton and renamed it " Château Mouton-Rothschild ". Philippe de Rothschild turned Mouton-Rothschild into a worldwide successful winery in the luxury segment of the market through strategic striving for quality and innovative marketing measures.

origin

Georges Philippe de Rothschild was the youngest child of Baron Henri de Rothschild (1872-1946) and his wife Mathilde Sophie Henriette von Weissweiller (1872-1926), who came from a Frankfurt banking family. He grew up with his siblings, James-Henri (1896–1984) and Nadine Charlotte Thérèse (1898–1958), in Paris and London .

Marriage and offspring

His first marriage was in 1934 Elisabeth (Lilli) Pelletier de Chambre (1902–1945, murdered in the Ravensbrück concentration camp ), divorced Baroness de Becker-Rémy. The marriage had two children:

In 1954 he got another marriage to his longtime lover Pauline Fairfax-Potter (1908-1976), divorced Fulton reader and former lover of filmmaker John Huston .

Life

Barrique storage in a French winery

During the 1920s, Philippe de Rothschild led the life of a playboy . He also inherited his love for fast cars from his father; in races he started under the pseudonym "Georges Philippe". In 1928 he drove his first Grand Prix race among other things at the Grand Prix Paris-Nice, 24 hours of Le Mans and the first car race held on the street circuit Circuit de Monaco in Monte Carlo ( Grand Prix of Monaco ), where he finished fourth occupied. Also in 1928 he took part as a sailor in the Olympic Games in Amsterdam , in the 6-meter class he and his crew took eighth place.

In 1922, the only twenty-year-old took over the winery from his father, Baron Henri de Rothschild. Two years later he “invented” the Château bottling and no longer delivered his wines to wholesalers in barrels, the “negociants”, as was customary until then, but exclusively in bottles - at that time a new, innovative measure that aroused opposition in the Bordeaux wine business as it diverted customer cash flows away from wholesalers and towards the winery.

Premiers Crus like Château Lafite , Latour , Haut-Brion and Château Margaux had to follow suit. The "winery bottling" ( Mise en bouteille au château ), which requires a year and a half to two years of aging of the wine in barriques , required the creation of new and larger winery facilities, which in the years 1924 to 1927 with the establishment of the Grand Chai was completed by the Parisian architect Charles Siclis (1889–1942).

There had been some bad vintages in Bordeaux by the late 1920s, and Baron Philippe de Rothschild made a virtue of necessity. He marketed a simple wine in 1927 that he called "Carruades de Mouton", but this was an economic flop. In 1930 a second attempt was made with the successor "Mouton Cadet". The part of the name Cadet means junior or youngest in German and was named after him, the youngest member of the family. The name had a double meaning, because the baron wanted to express the simpler quality . Mouton renounced the Carruades , but the Premier Cru neighboring estate of Vetter family, Château Lafite Rothschild , had for decades its second wine "Carruades de Lafite" named - wine, which control the quality of the Great wine , of Grand Vin allows only . The second wine was one of the baron's many ideas with regard to product and quality management and profit maximization.

1939-1945

During the war, the wineries were annexed by the pro-German Vichy government . A German "wine guide" was commissioned with the management. During the war years, Baron Philippe de Rothschild was with the Allied forces in England , while his wife and daughter stayed in France . In 1941 they were deported by the Gestapo to the Ravensbrück concentration camp , from where only the daughter returned.

The post-war years were devoted to the repair of war damage and the expansion and market strategy of the family business. In 1945, Philippe introduced artist labels , étiquettes d'artiste . He first realized the idea in 1924 with the artist Jean Carlu (1900–1997). From the 1945 vintage, a label for the first wine, Château Mouton-Rothschild, was to be designed by another contemporary artist. This annually changing label has given the brand a face to this day. It all started in 1945 with the French painter and friend Philippe Jullian (1921–1977). On the occasion of the victory over Germany and on the instructions of Philippe de Rothschild, the young artist designed a label with the imprint 1945 Année de la victoire ("1945 year of victory").

Every year since 1945, the label of the Château Mouton-Rothschild has been designed by a contemporary artist. Salvador Dalí (1958), Joan Miró (1969), Marc Chagall (1970), Pablo Picasso (1973) and Georg Baselitz (1989, the “Fall of the Wall” label) are just a few of the famous names that a work of art dedicated to this wine. 1987 was the year of the last vintage by Philippe de Rothschild, who died shortly after the harvest. The label for this vintage was designed by Hans Erni and shows a portrait of the baron, which also pays his last honor. Through this promotion idea, the demand for the wine and its value could be increased; the labels are now considered collector's items. The artists are still paid in kind, in wine.

Change of classification

On the occasion of the world exhibition in Paris in 1855 , Château Mouton Rothschild was classified as a Deuxième Cru - a historical fact that Philippe de Rothschild wanted to change, because the Mouton Rothschild was rated as Premier Cru for years - the original classification from 1855 was based only on long-term average trading prices . However, this classification by the edict of Emperor Napoléon III. attained a kind of legal character for the world exhibition in Paris.

On June 21, 1973 the then Agriculture Minister Jacques Chirac signed the decree which upgraded Château Mouton Rothschild to Premier Cru under wine law. In France, for example, any sales of a Premier Cru winery are subject to special conditions - among other things, the purchaser must be naturalized French, as such a winery is considered a “national treasure”. This change is the only one that has been made to the wine classification of the Médoc Peninsula since 1855.

Other entrepreneurial activities

Rothschild cultivated a special business relationship with the Californian winemaker Robert Mondavi (1913-2008). Together they started the joint venture Opus One Vineyard in the Napa Valley in 1979 with the red wine "Opus One". There are other participations and collaborations with Leonardo di Frescobaldi (* 1916) on the wineries Ornellaia ( Italy ) and Errázuriz ( Chile ).

Château Mouton-Rothschild is now considered a luxury brand. The winery and the company group belonging to it have been managed by Philippe de Rothschild's daughter, Philippine de Rothschild-Sereys, since 1989.

Motorsport

Philippe de Rothschild and Guy Bouriat competed in the 1929 Le Mans 24-hour race in a Stutz racing car , where they finished fifth. In addition to the race at Le Mans, he was also active in other sports car races in the 1930s.

statistics

Le Mans results

year team vehicle Teammate placement Failure reason
1929 FranceFrance Automobiles Elite Paris Stutz Model M Blackhawk FranceFrance Guy Bouriat Rank 5
1930 United States 48United States Robert Parke Stutz Model M Blackhawk FranceFrance Edmond Bourlier failure Axle break

Others

The asteroid (977) Philippa was named after him.

literature

  • Baron Philippe de Rothschild: Vivre la vigne: Du ghetto de Francfort à Mouton Rothschild, 1744–1981. Presses de la Cité, Paris 1981.
  • Joachim Kurz: The Rothschilds and the Wine. A success story from Bordeaux. Econ Verlag, Berlin 2006, ISBN 3430300053 .

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. a b c d e f Back then - Internet site: The wines of the Rothschilds. From: www.damals.de , accessed on December 7, 2012 .
  2. a b Classicscars - Internet site: Le Mans race results 1929. From : www.classicscars.com , accessed on October 28, 2012 .
  3. Teamdan - Internet site: Race results of the Grand Prix of Monaco 1929. (No longer available online.) At: www.teamdan.com , archived from the original on June 30, 2008 ; Retrieved December 7, 2012 .
  4. Volker Kluge : Olympic Summer Games. The Chronicle I. Athens 1896 - Berlin 1936. Sportverlag Berlin, Berlin 1997, ISBN 3-328-00715-6 , p. 662.
  5. Hotelgastro - website: Château Mouton Rothschild 1924. At: kb.hotelgastro.ch , accessed on December 7, 2012 .
  6. Hotelgastro - website: Château Mouton Rothschild 1945. At: kb.hotelgastro.ch , accessed on December 7, 2012 .
  7. Hotelgastro - website: Château Mouton Rothschild 1958. At: kb.hotelgastro.ch , accessed on December 7, 2012 .
  8. Hotelgastro - website: Château Mouton Rothschild 1969. At: kb.hotelgastro.ch , accessed on December 7, 2012 .
  9. Hotelgastro - website: Château Mouton Rothschild 1970. At: kb.hotelgastro.ch , accessed on December 7, 2012 .
  10. Hotelgastro - website: Château Mouton Rothschild 1973. At: kb.hotelgastro.ch , accessed on December 7, 2012 .
  11. Hotelgastro - website: Château Mouton Rothschild 1989. At: kb.hotelgastro.ch , accessed on December 7, 2012 .
  12. a b Opusonewinery - website: The Founders. (No longer available online.) At: en.opusonewinery.com , archived from the original on December 7, 2012 ; Retrieved December 7, 2012 .
  13. ^ Dictionary of Minor Planet Names, Volume 1 in the Google Book Search