Wine Talk; Another Rothschild Stands Behind a Bordeaux

By Frank J. Prial

Published: Wednesday, October 1, 1997

WHO would have thought, a decade ago, that by the turn of the century two of the four Rothschilds most closely identified with Bordeaux wine would be women?

Philippine de Rothschild, the owner and director of Chateau Mouton-Rothschild since the death of her father, Philippe, in 1988, is the best known. But that may change. Nadine de Rothschild is beginning to make her way in the wine world.

She is the owner of Chateau Malmaison and the wife of Baron Edmond de Rothschild, a cousin of Philippe's. He is the owner of Chateau Clarke and a shareholder in the Domaines Barons Rothschild, which owns Chateau Lafite-Rothschild and other wine properties. The fourth Rothschild is Baron Eric, another cousin, who has been the managing partner in Lafite since 1977.

Baroness Nadine de Rothschild was in New York recently promoting Malmaison, which achieved its separate identity as a chateau only in the mid-1980's. Previously, it had been the name of the second wine of Chateau Clarke.

Chateau Clarke, which Baron Edmond acquired in 1973, is in the commune of Listrac -- though the town line running through the property puts a portion of the vineyard in neighboring Moulis. That portion is Chateau Malmaison (wine chateaus traditionally have a chateau on the property -- but not all do).

Wine has been made in Listrac and Moulis since Roman times, but it has never been in the same league as that made by the famous communes like Pauillac, St.-Julien and Margaux, a few miles to the east. Mouton, which was purchased by the Rothschilds in 1853, and Lafite, which another branch of the family bought in 1868, are both in Pauillac.

In the 1855 classification of Bordeaux chateaus, Mouton and Lafite are both at the very top, among the five first growths. Neither Clarke nor Malmaison even figures in that hierarchy of the leading 60 chateaus.

Baron Edmond is said to be the richest of the Rothschilds, 10 to 100 times as wealthy as any of the others, according to Le Monde, the Paris newspaper. He is also a maverick, following his own path in banking and wine as well as in his private life.

His marriage to Nadine Lhopitalier in 1963 startled French society. Traditionally, Rothschilds marry women of culture and substance -- women who are self-effacing and, invariably, Jewish. Miss Lhopitalier, a middling film actress who used the stage name Tallier, came from a penniless family and had no education beyond grammar school. She had been a factory worker at 14, and later a model. And she was Catholic.

The story of their meeting at a Paris dinner party is legendary. His first words to her, so the story goes, were, ''That's a beautiful diamond you're wearing; too bad it isn't real.'' Later, seated next to him, she watched him open a small pillbox. Inside the box she saw a wedding ring.

''I have no doubt that it's real,'' she said, ''but isn't it in the wrong place?''

Baron Edmond was in the throes of a divorce at the time. Three years later, they were married. She quickly converted to Judaism.

''It would not have been possible to have the name Rothschild and be a Catholic,'' she said some years afterward, ''nor would it have been right for the son of a Rothschild to be half Jewish and half Catholic.''

Benjamin, their only child, is 37.

''He works in the bank in Paris,'' his mother said over lunch in Manhattan last month, refering to the Paris branch of Baron Edmond's bank Compagnie Financiere. ''But he's also interested in the wine. If you're a Rothschild, the chances are you're going to be interested in one or the other -- or both.''

Not to be outdone by her husband and son, Baroness Nadine took a short course in enology at the University of Bordeaux before taking on the Malmaison project. She is also a successful writer. Her seven books include one best-seller in France, a memoir published in 1983 titled ''The Baroness Will Return at 5.''

Buying Chateau Clarke and the adjoining estates, Malmaison and Peyrelebade, was typical of Edmond de Rothschild. In 1973, when the Bordeaux wine trade was in one of its periodic downturns, some famous properties were in serious financial trouble, including the chateaus Latour, Margaux and Beychevelle. He chose Clarke instead, a virtually forgotten estate in a backwater of the wine country.

Originally known as Granges, the estate had first been planted with vines in the 12th century by Cistercian monks. In the 18th century, it was acquired by the Clarke family, which had emigrated from Ireland in 1692. They bought the property in 1750; the first chateau, built in 1810, was demolished in 1955.

Baron Edmond apparently hoped to do with Clarke in a few years what his cousins at Mouton and Lafite had taken a century to achieve. He invested a fortune in reviving the vineyards and building a magnificent winery and residence.

But neither Listrac nor Moulis is Pauillac. Writing of Clarke some years ago, the English wine expert David Peppercorn said, ''The prices more closely reflect the prestige of the Rothschild name and the prodigious investment and effort that have gone into the wine's production rather than their intrinsic merit as wines.''

Of the 430 acres that comprise the Clarke estate, some 360 are planted in vines. The Malmaison vineyards account for about 60 acres. The vines at both properties, abandoned for some 20 years when Baron Edmond bought the property, were totally replanted between 1974 and 1978.

Wines under the Malmaison label have appeared in the United States in limited quantities since the mid-1980's. I found good things to say about the 1988 vintage in 1993 and the 1990 vintage in 1995.

At a tasting two weeks ago, recent vintages, including the 1995, came off well for a Cru Bourgeois, which is what this wine is. In other words, a well-made minor Bordeaux. Moulis has long had a better reputation than Listrac for its wines. Chateau Chasse-Spleen and Chateau Poujeaux are both in Moulis. Whether Chateau Malmaison -- so close to Listrac and once considered the second wine of a Listrac property -- actually shares in Moulis's superiority, only time will tell.

For now, it is an attractive, rather one-dimensional wine at a good price -- under $15. And for whatever it's worth, it is a Rothschild wine.