“Heelllloooo Jim” was usually how the conversation started – with a loud and enthusiastic yell. “How are you!” she would exclaim in her near-perfect British accent, before listening intently to my answer with interest and concern. And if I didn’t see her personally while tasting her wine from bottle or barrel at the estate, she would send a handwritten note saying that she hoped I had enjoyed her precious Mouton.
Baroness Philippine de Rothschild died last Friday night at 80 years old, and it’s hard to believe one of this generation’s icons for the wine world is gone. It’s a world left already a little less special than it once was. I find it strange to think that I drank a fabulous bottle of 1986 Château Mouton-Rothschild in Bangkok hours before her passing. She was on my mind.
I remember when we got to know each other in the early 1990s after her father died in 1988. She seemed terrified to take over the helm of the famous first growth as well as the lesser estates of Clerc-Milon and d’Armailhac, not to mention the joint venture winery with the Mondavi family, Opus One. Then there was Baron Philippe de Rothschild SA, the family’s wine merchant firm and the producers of Mouton Cadet, arguably one of the most successful wine brands in history.
Yet she did splendidly, as she might say. The “Madame”, as those who worked with her called her, would micromanage everything. This was her personal way of doing everything; she wanted her energy and vibrancy to touch everything, and it showed.
“Everyone says that I am overworked because I have to do everything myself,” she told me about 20 years ago for a cover story in The Wine Spectator. I spent about a month researching the story and following her around France and the United States. “They are very nasty. I am going to be pretentious: If someone could do it better than me, then I would let them. I am not talking about business because I have the very best people but other things.”
All these other things seemed limitless when it came to Philippine. While black and white photographs with stars such as Catherine Deneuve bespeak her standing and esteem during her acting career, Philippine was certainly a larger-than-life character in the wine world. Everyone felt her stage presence – whether she was attending a meeting at her “Dear Mouton”, as she called it, or visiting a friend or customer in some faraway place.
She would personally select the artist for the label of Mouton-Rothschild each year. I remember one summer running into her in Barcelona, where she was soon upset that I had figured out whom she had selected for the 1995 vintage – Antoni Tàpies. I never told anyone.
The fact is she really cared about everyone and everything she did. On one occasion, she personally telephoned me after deciding to drop the en primeur price of the 2008 Mouton to about 100 Euros a bottle. It was a huge cut, but was appreciated around the world during an extremely difficult time economically. “Jim, we have to do something. We have to show the world that we care,” she said.
I can’t write something on Philippine without mentioning the harrowing story of the loss of her mother during World War II. Philippine was a young child living in Paris, and two Gestapo agents visited her apartment to ask her mother about the whereabouts of her father. He was in England working with the Free French. The two Nazis decided to take her mother away for further questioning and she was never seen again. On a whim, they decided to leave Philippine with her governess because one of the agents had a daughter the same age.
“It is incredible,” she told me for the story in The Wine Spectator. We never spoke about this again even though we met countless times afterwards. “My life was decided in one second. I am here in a way because of a miracle and I feel that everyday.”
Perhaps this is why Philippine seemed in such a hurry all the time? Perhaps this is why she was so driven and determined? She wanted to accomplish so much in her life. She had so many aspirations and dreams. The late cellar master of Mouton, Raoul Blondin, once said to me that Philippine was completely different from her father, describing her as a “tornado.” She certainly was a force of nature, and the wine world will never be the same without her.
She is survived by her three children: Camille, Philippe and Julien. Her funeral service is next Monday at Mouton.
Photo Credits: Emanuele Scorcelletti
