Philippe de Rothschild

Baron Philippe de Rothschild (April 13, 1902 - January 20, 1988) was a member of the Rothschild banking dynasty who became a Grand Prix race-car driver, a scriptwriter, a theatrical producer, a poet, and the most successful wine grower in the world.

Born in Paris, Georges Philippe de Rothschild was the younger son of Baron Henri James de Rothschild (1872-1946) (who was a noted playwright under the name André Pascal) and Mathilde Sophie Henriette von Weissweiller (1872-1926). At the outbreak of World War I, 12-year-old Philippe was sent to the safety of the family's vineyard in the village of Pauillac in the Médoc. There, he developed a love of the country and the wine business, an enterprise in his family since 1853, but one his father and grandfather had shown little interest in.

As a young man, in sharp contrast to the Rothschild family’s staid aristocratic traditions, Philippe de Rothschild became a larger-than-life personality as a race-car driver, actor, film producer, artist, and the man who revolutionized winemaking in the 20th century. He was only twenty years old when he took over the operations of the Château Mouton Rothschild vineyards and two years later in 1924 came up with the unheard of idea of bottling the entire vintage at the Château, an idea that other producers of Premier Cru wines soon copied. Previously, vineyards sold their wines in bulk, leaving the maturing, bottling, labeling and marketing to be handled by the wine merchants. Philippe de Rothschild's idea was to maintain control over the quality of his product and allow marketing of the brand name.

During the 1920s, Philippe lived the life of a wealthy playboy, often found in the company of a beautiful woman, usually an actress, at one of the popular night spots in Paris. Philippe's older brother had made friends with Robert Benoist when they served together in the Armée de l'Air during World War I and through this connection, for a short time young Philippe took up Grand Prix motor racing. From his father, he inherited the love of fast cars, but wishing to maintain a low profile Philippe used the pseudynom "Georges Philippe" in order to race anonymously. In 1928, he first competed in the Paris to Nice race after which he purchased a new Bugatti and entered a Grand Prix event at Le Mans. In 1929 he competed in a number of races, including the first ever Grand Prix of Monaco where he finished a respectable 4th to winner William Grover-Williams. Three weeks later he went to Dijon where he scored his first victory in the Grand Prix de Bourgogne. However, with his increasing fame, the media began to question exactly who was "Georges Philippe" and as such, Philippe de Rothschild dropped out of the racing scene, competing only one more time in the 1930 24 hours of Le Mans.

Despite the time spent racing automobiles, and as producer of the 1932 film, Lac aux Dames, the first French "talkie" to gain international recognition, the energetic Philippe de Rothschild still devoted his energies and innovation to Château Mouton Rothschild in Pauillac. Upon harvesting a crop he considered not up to the high standards his vineyard had become known for, he believed it essential to maintain their reputation for quality and chose not to sell that year's vintage under the Château label. Although still an acceptable vintage, in 1932 Philippe de Rothschild began to sell the wine as a good low-cost Bordeaux under the name "Mouton Cadet". The product became so successful that he eventually had to purchase grapes from vineyards throughout the Bordeaux region just to meet the demand. Today, Mouton Cadet is the number one selling red wine in the world.

As an offshoot of self-bottling, Philippe, also came up with the idea of having their own label designed by a famous artist of the day. In 1946, this became a permanent and very major part of the vineyard's image with labels created by great painters and sculptors such as Jean Cocteau, Leonor Fini, Henry Moore, Marie Laurencin, Georges Braque, Salvador Dalí, Jacques Villon, Pierre Alechinsky, Joan Miró, Marc Chagall, Pablo Picasso, César, Jean-Paul Riopelle, Andy Warhol and other notables.

In 1933 Philippe had expanded the Mouton Rothschild estates with the acquisition of the neighboring Chateau d'Armailhacq. By the late 1930s, the wines of Mouton Rothschild were recognized as among the world's greatest. Nonetheless, the Mouton vineyard was still rated as a "second growth" as a result of the Bordeaux Wine Official Classification of 1855 and Philippe de Rothschild began a lifelong mission to rectify this. In 1973, Château Mouton Rothschild became the only French vineyard to ever achieve reclassification to first growth.

In 1935, Philippe de Rothschild married an aristocratic divorcée, Elisabeth Pelletier de Chambure (1902-1945), known as Lili. They had two children: Philippine Mathilde Camille de Rothschild (born November 22, 1935) and Charles Henri de Rothschild (born and died 1937). Rothschild's late-in-life memoirs ("Milady Vine," written in collaboration with his companion, the British director Joan Littlewood) describe a marriage of great passion but also enormous tempestuousness and despair. The couple's difficulties increased when their only son was born tragically deformed and died soon after birth. They eventually separated, and the baron's wife reverted to her maiden name.

The outbreak of the World War II had serious consequences for the entire Rothschild family, who were Jewish. Philippe de Rothschild's parents fled to the safety of Lausanne, Switzerland and the Paris mansion where they lived became the headquarters for the German Naval Command. Although he was called up to serve in the French air force, the quick fall of France resulted in Philippe being arrested by the Vichy government and the vineyard property seized. Escaping, Philippe de Rothschild made his way to England where he joined the Free French Forces of General Charles de Gaulle, earning a Croix de Guerre medal.

On his return to France following the Allies liberation, Philippe de Rothschild learned that although his daughter was safe, the Gestapo had deported his estranged wife, Lili, to Ravensbrück concentration camp where on March 23, 1945 she was executed. Devastated, Rothschild had to deal with problems at his vineyard as well. Chateau Mouton Rothschild was in need of considerable repair and the departing German army had done considerable damage to the property. Together with dedicated employees, he put his energy into restoring the vineyard and by the early 1950s, was once again producing some of the world's best wines. As well, during the early 1950s, the multi-talented Rothschild returned to participation in the theatrical world, teaming up with Gaston Bonheur to write in both English and French the play Lady Chatterley's Lover. Based on the D.H. Lawrence novel, their play was later made into a motion picture starring Danielle Darrieux. In 1952 Rothschild and Bonheur wrote the script for the film, La Demoiselle et son revenant. He also translated Elizabethan poetry and the plays of Christopher Fry.

In 1954, Rothschild married a longtime mistress, Pauline Fairfax Potter (1908-1976), a Paris-born American who had been the head fashion designer at Hattie Carnegie. After their marriage, she used her aesthetic talents to help restore an old storage building on the estate, converting it into a magnificent home, and became famed as a tastemaker in the worlds of fashion and interior design.

In 1962, at Mouton the Rothschilds created the Museum of Wine in Art; here a priceless collection of art works covering three millennia of wine are on display, including original art by Pablo Picasso and rare glassware. In 1970, Rothschild purchased Château Clerc Milon, a fifth-growth classified vineyard strategically located next to his own property. Having achieved his lifelong goal with the 1973 the upgrading of Chateau Mouton Rothschild to Premiere Cru status, he began looking beyond France for wine growing opportunities and in 1980 announced a joint venture with the respected American wine grower, Robert Mondavi to form the "Opus One Winery" in Oakville, California. In 1997, under the direction of his daughter, Philippine, Château Mouton-Rothschild teamed up with Concha y Toro of Chile to produce a Cabernet Sauvignon-based, Bordeaux-style red wine in a new winery built in Chile's Maipo Valley.

Baron Philippe de Rothschild remained active in the business until he died in 1988 at the age of 86, whereupon its reins were taken up by his daughter, who also achieved acclaim as a stage actress under the name Philippine Pascal.