CNN.com - Philippine de Rothschild Talkasia Transcript

LH: Lorraine Hahn
PR: Philippine de Rothschild

LH: Hello and welcome to talk Asia, I'm Lorraine Hahn.

My guest today is Baroness Philippine de Rothschild, matriarch of one of the most influential families in France, and the owner of the famous Chateau Mouton-Rothschild.

Philippine de Rothschild was born in 1933, and spent her childhood in France during the tumultuous years of World War 2. Her father was arrested before he managed to escape to London, while her mother perished in a concentration camp. Philippine herself narrowly escaped death by being smuggled out of Paris by her grandfather.

The family re-grouped after the war, and her father restored the vineyard, re-building the Chateau Mouton-Rothschild name to its current prominence.

Philippine studied drama at the Paris Conservatoire and chose the stage for her career, before joining the family business.

In more recent years, she has modernized the company, extended its product range...And is perhaps most famous for promoting original artwork on bottle labels, even taking the art to museums around the world.

Madam Baroness, welcome to Hong Kong and welcome to the studio. (PR: Thank you.) Thank you very much. Since you took control of the family business in 1998, the Chateau Mouton-Rothschild, business production has almost doubled, how did you do that?

PR: I was involved long before that because I was on the board. But I was on the board with the father who was a guru, a very important, very powerful man, and who didn't take much notice of my opinions at the time. But after all, it's quite good because then, you know, you make yourself a place in the sun, you have to fight, which I think is always a good thing. So I fought -- not against my father, but against all things that weren't exactly like I thought they should be.

LH: What were you up against, when you finally, when your father passed away and you sort of had...

PR: It's long and difficult to say because there's a lot to say. The company was, I wouldn't say medieval, that would be too much, but it was still very local. We have always been saying, sort of 50 acres to produce and the whole world to sell, which is true. We've always sold, exported 75% if not more, of our production. So we were always very much worldwide but not with the same spirit as people are today with globalization.

LH: You mentioned globalization and I like to bring that up, in terms of what your thoughts are on it. Is it important to make wine accessible? And has it destroyed, let's say, the soul and craftsmanship of the wine?

PR: No, that would never happen because we are lucky enough to have one of the last products which is not made with computers. Certainly not only, with computers also. We're very happy in the laboratory to be able to find out scientifically, certain things that we didn't know at all 20 or 30 or even more years ago. But the product will always remain with the soil, the "tehoire", which we call the "tehoire", which is a very French name. It's a word which is practically untranslatable because it means the vineyard, the vines, but also the sun, the sky, the rain, the wind, all that. And you see, all that we don't control!

LH: Madam Baroness of course you know there are many new generation wines that are coming up, do you think they pose a threat to the Bordeaux establishment. Do you even see it as a threat?

PR: Of course! But I think it's fun, it's good! It's nice to have threats! We should have challenges and certainly the new world wines are challenges for us. But that's alright. I mean, I do think we have this tradition, we have wines in Bordeaux particularly, wines that grow old that get much older and better as they get older, better and better. And that, I think, we are rather unique on. And I think that will remain.

LH: Right. Your collaboration with Robert Mondavi on Opus 1 decades ago. That seemed to be a very unusual collaboration.

PR: It was in the beginning. (LH: Yes!) In the beginning, nobody believed in it. It was 1979 and you know the Bordeaux people, all our Bordeaux friends were saying,"What is this?" It was the Baron, my father then, Baron Philippe. "Philippe, what is this man doing, giving out our secrets to the Californians, which was the most stupid thing in the world! Because the Californians were perfectly capable of coming to get the secrets from us, in Bordeaux, if they wanted to!" Which they did actually. Robert Mondavi was very much a pioneer, coming to Europe, and tasting our wines and all that.

And when we did this joint venture 50-50 with Robert Mondavi, it was of course the first, certainly the first Franco Californian venture wine that was ever created in the history of wine! So that was really, very exciting adventure, and it is still, of course, on. And Opus 1 has become... wine takes time so it took 20-25 years for Opus 1 to become, practically the one, not the first, but one of the first -- like Mouton is one of the first best wines in France -- Opus 1 is one of the best wines in California.

LH: Madam Baroness, recently in developing countries, it's trendy to drink wine, good wine especially. (PR: Good, I'm glad!) Do you think enough is being done in terms of educating people in enjoying and appreciating good wine? And let me just cite an example for you -- in certain places, certain people tend to mix their good wines with soft drinks or whatever. Is there, do you believe, enough being done to, like I said, educate people?

PR: No, I think nothing is ever enough being done, so I don't think... I'm sure there isn't enough being done. There's a lot in America. In fact, I really have to say there's a tribute to America on this one because America has led the way marvelously in the last 30 years, 20 -25 years, in educating people, and the consumption of wine is growing very, very much in America. But it's also because the Americans make very good wine, so they felt also that they had to tell their people what they were doing, which I think is fine! That's why you see, when you talk of competition, I mean it is competition, but I mean, why not? It's alright! (LH: Right.) Because it helps us too! If the Americans make good wines and they have education and they educate people about good wines, it serves us too.

Now in Asia, I think you're right to put that question to me because I think in Asia there is a lot to be done, and I hope it will be done and I feel that China, personally, the whole of China is an unbelievably evolving, new, fabulously opening market. And that is very exciting!

LH: Baroness, we're going to take a very, very short break. (PR: Fine.) When we come back, we'll talk to the Baroness about the relationship between art and wine. Stay with us.

Block B:

LH: Welcome back to Talk Asia. I'm with the Baroness Philippine de Rothschild. Madam Baroness, your family, the Rothschilds, they really made their name and fortune through banking. (PR: Yes.) But you chose the stage, initially! (laughs)

PR: I chose the stage. Yes, yes well! Well, because... My grandfather, Baron Henry, wrote very interesting plays in the 1900's which were acted by very good actors and actresses. My father was a producer in films, so there must be some sort of streak in my branch of the family to do with show business and something like theatre. But I agree there was no actress before me, in me going on the stage. When, you know, I was 18 and there was nothing else I wanted to do. I mean, I didn't have to think, I mean, I really didn't have to choose. I mean, I knew I wanted to do that. I mean...

LH: And there was no pressure for you to get into the family business?

PR: Not at the time, not at all. I mean you realize that was the end of the war and the family business was very small. My father was gathering his Mouton Carte Rothschild everything up and trying to make it live again after 5 years of Nazi occupation.

Mouton was occupied physically by the Nazi's. I mean Goering thought he was going to keep France for 50 years and that he was going to have all the wine. He loved wines and so he organized all the wine trade in France in his way of doing it. I mean, it was unbelievable so we had to do everything from scratch again so there was no room for me then, I wouldn't imagine. But Mouton was already my home. I always said it was my fun home, my home for, you know, holiday but now it's become my working home. That's the difference.

LH: What made you quit the stage and get into the family business then?

PR: Mouton! (LH: laughs) Nothing else! Otherwise I would certainly still be on the stage!

LH: Any regrets leaving the theatre?

PR: Yes, yes of course! I mean, you know, it was 25 years of a lot. I was in the Comédie-Française. I did... I acted, I actually acted in Japan. In 1977 we did a play called Harold and Maude. I mean, it was my life then!

LH: Would you go back?

PR: If I had time, yes! It's a time problem. You can't do two things... I don't think you can do two things well, (LH: Well. At the same time.) at the same time. You have to choose one of them.

LH: Prior to being in the business, where did you learn to run a business, a company?

PR: I learned a lot from going around countries in the 80s. And funnily enough, the one thing that helped me a lot is this thing that I created, which is the exhibition of the original paintings which were created by artists since 1945 for the labels of Mouton Rothschild.

And we happened to have these paintings sitting in old drawers, nobody ever bothered about it. And when I said to my father in the 80s, I think it would be interesting to show people the originals. Maybe they'll be interested, people who are wine lovers to see... when they see on the labels it's very small, when you see in real, the originals, the originals can be like that, an enormous thing like that! And they will hold it like that etc, etc.

And my father said, "What nonsense! You'll never get anywhere with that! Nobody will want to see that!" I said, "Well, let me try!" And I tried, and we tried, and it succeeded in fact!

So that took me along... all over America. We went to 16 cites in America and I started, you know, really putting my foot steps in the business, finding, meeting our agents, seeing how they work, how the business worked, and I discovered also something. In the beginning, I was terrified! I mean, I thought, I'm no good with numbers, that sort of thing, and I realized that in fact business is first common sense. The first word is common sense. People... I mean, you have to just think where you want to get to, where you want to go, and go!

LH: Talking about the artists, like Pablo Picasso, Andy Warhol that you put on the labels. How do you choose which artists you want on?

PR: Well, you know, I choose it really by love, by what I like and not like. I wouldn't put on a label, painting that I don't like, that's the first point. The other point, which I've tried to do since the 80s, is to have artists from different countries. International... Internationalize the collection, which was, in the 60s and 70s rather French, English, American, American, French, English so then, with a few Spanish like Miro, and you know, Henry Moore, and American. But from the 80s, we have a lot of other countries, like Haiti, we've had Asian painter, we have a lot of Dutch now...

(LH: Well, Chinese!)

PR: Yes Chinese! Of course! In 1996, that was a great adventure because Mr. Gu Gan, a wonderful painter, he came to Mouton. He didn't speak a word of any other language but Chinese, and didn't know how to eat without his sticks! So what was so charming is he used our forks and knifes as sticks (LH: Chopsticks!) Chopsticks! I've never seen anyone in the world doing this. He took them, he was so clever he took our fork and knife and used them as chopsticks! And we were all amazed and we admired that very much. We thought it was charming that he was keeping his Chinese habits even in Europe. I like that very much!

LH: Anymore from this part of the world, any more from Asia?

PR: Not for the moment. But if I live long enough, it will come!

LH: Madam Baroness, how does art complement wine?

PR: Ah well, I think it's a basic thing to say which I wasn't the first to say it. My father was the first person to say it. He always said that making a great wine was like making art. And he was always telling the people who were making the wine this, in the cellars, in the backrooms, everywhere. He was always saying, "You're doing art, don't forget that. A great wines, the great best wines, are art!" And it's true. There's an art side to them. So in a way, I think that with that philosophy, putting, you know, something arty on the label was something quite obvious! It came as an evidence, in fact really.

LH: Right. And it's worked very well. Madam we're going to take another very, very short break. When we return, what it means to be a Rothschild, we'll ask the Baroness about growing up in that prominent family during the tumultuous years of World War 2. Don't go away!

BLOCK C:

LH: Welcome back, my guest is Baroness Philippine de Rothschild, owner of the Chateau Mouton-Rothschild. Baroness, your life has been quite eventful to say the least! (laughs) You were not even ten when the World War 2 broke out. How much of those days can you remember?

PR: Until the whole of France was invaded by the Nazis, we lived... my father, my mother and I, lived in the south of France in Artib which was in the really down, down, down south. I'm very happy. I went to school. I had the sort of southern accent in French, which everyone laughed about. And I was a little girl of course I was very happy.

And then in '42, the Nazis invaded the whole of France. And I remember my father saying very clearly on November 15, 1942, "This time I'm going. I can't stay for two weeks because if I stay for 1 or 2 more weeks, I'll be arrested as Jew." Which, of course, he was right. So he left through Spain, went up to meet de Gaulle, and went into the de Gaulle forces. And my mother, now she was Roman Catholic, so she thought, she was absolutely wrong and very imprudent, but she thought she risked nothing. So we went up to Paris.

But then of course then the awful thing happened and my mother was arrested 3 weeks after the landing. She was arrested June 22, 1944. Which meant, 6th June was the landing of the allied forces in Normandy. And there she was arrested. She stayed for 2 months in a prison in Paris and then she was taken to Auschwitz by practically the last train. It's just fate. I mean, this is a tragedy, of course.

I was then taken out of Paris, of course, hidden, because it was so miraculous that they left me. I'm a sort of miracle of nature. And people ask me what I kept from that. I kept a feeling...I'm perfectly all right, but I know that things don't only happen to other people. They happen also to you. That is the one thing I've kept -- a sort of feeling, a bit of insecurity, somehow.

LH: How did you finally reunite with your father?

PR: Ah! It's a good question! I was in the country and he arrived to fetch me near Paris. And I hadn't seen my father 2 years and a half. And at the time, I had no mother, no father. And I didn't recognize him. He arrived with a battle dress and a beret like that on the side of his head. And I looked at that man and I was wondering, I was playing with the girls around and I said "I wonder why that man's looking at me like that!" And this lasted for a long time, which is 30 seconds, something like that, you know. And suddenly, I looked at the face and I said "Papa!" You know, it is my father who was there. And I jumped into his arms and that was it! But it's true that I didn't recognize him.

LH: Right. That must've been an amazing experience!

PR: Yes I remember it very, very well actually. Shivers! It still gives me shivers down my back when I remember that. A long time ago.

LH: Now in the family, your son... (PR: Yes. Two sons! I have two sons.) Okay. Actively involved (PR: Yes!) in the business? (PR: Yes!)

PR: And funnily enough, one, I'll tell you immediately something! They're so different, that it's fascinating. One is a businessman, Philippe, the older, he's 42. He's a businessman. He's in banking, in investment banking. He would run the place. He'd do the numbers, he'd be very good. But the younger one, is more an artist. He's done history art, he's done a degree in history art. He's selling and buying and selling old master drawings at the moment. He's a charmer, and I think he'll do all the aesthetics and do all aesthetics. He will look after the Mouton museum. As you know we have a museum of wine and art there. And the labels. I'm sure he'll be choosing the labels very soon.

LH: (laughs) So you want to keep it in the family? (PR: Oh yes!) But would there come a time that possibly an outsider could take charge?

PR: I hope not! (LH: laughs) I hope not! We are very much claiming to be one of the last family businesses in Medoc.

LH: Of all the rare vintages that you have, do you have a favourite?

PR: No, and you know why? Because they are so different. The amusement of Mouton Rothschild especially is... we have many other wines, which are maybe sometimes less different from one year to another. With the Chilean wines for instance, less different, they are different! And Opus one also. But especially the Bordeaux wines, they are so different from one year to another. So I'm a drinker, so there, it's very personal, I'm surrounded by people who love younger wines. And I respect their taste. I prefer older wines. I like wines that become classical, that have become a little bit sort of not too harsh, not too... (LH: Spicy, maybe?) That's right, that's right. Not too overwhelming in the mouth. So that means older wines.

LH: You know the basics for wine? if you have red meat, you drink red wine, if you have seafood, you have white. But if I were to put a menu together, most likely an Asian menu, whether it's Chinese or whatever, would you have any suggestions is to how I could think of how to place my wines?

PR: Well, yes. I would say that with all the shells, every shell, all shells should be white. But fish can really have red wine. It's a stupidity when people say don't have red wine it's fish. You can have red wine with fish! It's delicious! Not too strong a red wine, a light red wine, you can have.

LH: Madam Baroness, what does wine mean to you? I mean, it must be more than just a business?

PR: Of course! First of all, it's dialogue to me, which means peace. I'm sorry to say these rather serious things and rather grave ones, but I think that's very important. It's conviviality! Wine is something that people drink together, I don't think you should drink wine alone, unless it's wines to get drunk and that's not our wines at all. Wine is not there to get drunk on. Wine is a pleasure to be decussated, to be tasted with, you know, with refinement, and with conviviality. So you drink wine with people. And if you drink wine with people, you don't fight with them. So I think in a way that wine is a token, if possible to say, for peace. It's something that would bring peace and not war, which of course I think is very important.

LH: Madam Baroness, thank you very, very much for your time. Really appreciate it. (PR: Thank you!) Thank you. And that's Talk Asia this week, my guest has been Baroness Philippine de Rothschild. I'm Lorraine Hahn, let's talk again next week.

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