Heralding Mouton Rothschild’s entry into the modern age

‘Hurry, hurry, here I come, life begins at twenty…’ said a young Baron Philippe de Rothschild as he journeyed by train to take over the family’s Médoc estate in 1922. This moment, recounted in his autobiography Vivre la Vigne (1981), marked the beginning of a new era at Chateau Mouton Rothschild.

The centenary of Philippe’s arrival at the estate is the inspiration for the latest premier cru 2022 vintage, released on 1 December, with a label designed by French artist Gérard Garouste (b. 1946). Hommage au Baron Philippe, as the artwork is known, celebrates the Baron’s legacy, featuring a portrait of the man described as ‘mischievous and unharnessed’ by theatre director Joan Littlewood, who in later life was his companion and translated his autobiography.

Garouste delved into the estate’s archives and family photos and memories for inspiration. The artist explains, ‘I was greatly attracted by [the Baron’s] character, not least because elegance is something I set great store by. Baron Philippe was a man of great elegance, very hard-working, and he had the look of someone very sure of himself, with a mischievous side. That is what I have tried to capture in the way I have portrayed him.’

The label for Mouton Rothschild 2022, featuring Hommage au Baron Philippe by Gérard Garouste

Julien de Beaumarchais de Rothschild, co-owner of Château Mouton Rothschild, and the man responsible for the estate’s artistic and cultural activity and relations with artists – has described the art work as: ‘a kind of heraldic banner: it needs to be deciphered. It comprises three very powerful images: the ram, the front wall of Chateau Mouton Rothschild and the portrait of Baron Philippe.’ The ram was chosen as a symbol for the vineyard by Baron Philippe – perhaps influenced by his own astrological sign, Aries. As Garouste says, ‘I find it fascinating that Baron Philippe chose the ram’s head as a symbol, as it features in both Greek and biblical mythology.’

Garouste is perhaps best known for his depictions of fairytales and fables. In the 1980s his figurative work was shown at Holly Solomon and Leo Castelli and Sperone in New York. As he became more successful, he was able to branch out beyond the canvas. He designed glass windows for Notre Dame de Talant and a work for the Bibliotèque nationale de France, which was commissioned in 1996, combined paint and iron work, reigniting his interest in sculpture, which has preoccupied him in recent years. His practice has encompassed performance, directing, stage design, scenography and writing. This multi-media approach to the arts is not foreign to the Chateau. Before the Baron it over he was a writer, director, and producer in the theatre and film industries – he financed the Théâtre Pigalle from 1924 to 1931 and produced Lac aux Dames, one of the first masterpieces of talking pictures, released in 1934.

When Baron Phillippe arrived at the estate in 1922, he was considered an outsider and upstart in the traditionalist Médoc. He had seen how at the start of the new decade wine was seen to be dreary and old hat in the eyes of modern cocktail drinkers, and he set out to rectify this. The Medoc wine industry needed a shakeup – ‘they would call it a revolution, but it would be a revolution that had its roots in tradition,’ he wrote. His changes to how wine was made, distributed and marketed was adopted by the global wine industry: these included bottling the wine at the chateau, cellaring onsite and creating modern labels designed by artists. He was proud of the new product and knew it would be of historic importance. Innovation. As he wrote in his autobiography, ‘until now nobody had ever signed a bottle, but I, Philippe, intended to let the world and his wife know that my wine was the best’. No wonder it seems apt to have his portrait on the label.