How Two Decades Of Patience And Three Branches Of A Famous Family Resulted In A Crazy Champagne Story

At Suria KLCC’s Smith & Wollensky, the modern steakhouse’s rich, earthy ambience offers a counterpoint to the effervescent lilt which the evening promised. Holding court was Champagne Barons de Rothschild’s president and chairman, Frédéric Mairesse, who began the evening by detailing the unique circumstances which led to the formation of Champagne Barons de Rothschild. 

“This crazy story started 20 years ago, only 20 years ago, when the bankers and wine lovers of the Rothschild families—who have been doing wine for more than 180 years and banking for more than 280 years—had the idea to do a Champagne together,” Mairesse says. “So, for the first time, the three active branches of the Rothschild families created a Champagne together.”

The resulting Champagne depicts the coming together of the families with a composition mirroring the winemaking wisdom of the trio of families behind some of the most famous châteaux in the wine world: Mouton, Lafite, Rieussec, Clark, and many more. 

Mairesse, a savvy insider in the Champagne world with stints at Maison Pommery, Ruinart, Veuve Clicquot, and at Seagram with Mumm and Perrier Jouët among others, paid tribute to the effort behind crafting a ‘Grand Vin’ which would uphold the standards demanded by the Rothschild name. “They got the best winemakers, an amazing winery, and they were very patient, waiting for four to ten years to deliver the bottles,” Mairesse says of the eventual release of the Barons de Rothschild Champagne.  

As a foundational stone, Chardonnay, the heart of the Barons de Rothschild Champagne, and Pinot Noir, which provides rich, red fruit and power, are sourced from choice Grands and Premier Cru vineyards. Meanwhile, reserve wines—created since the first harvest of 2005 and stored to the level of detail by cru and plot—are then recruited to make up more than 40 per cent of the non-vintage champagnes, preserving depth, balance and complexity of the non-vintage Champagnes. 

On this very evening, in the company of Smith & Wollensky’s wine members and invited guests of Bordeaux Liquid Gold—the official appointed distributor of Champagne Barons de Rothschild, guests enjoyed a quartet of current releases from Barons de Rothschild and two more vintages from Chateau Mouton Rothschild, as they tucked into a six-course dinner of seared Creole-spiced Hokkaido scallops, Pacific lobster escalope, 15-year-old Luxoria Oscietra caviar, a rack of lamb, and a 28-day dry-aged New York strip.

During the proceedings, Mairesse points to the 2014 Rare Collection Blanc de Blancs with its Chardonnay sourced exclusively from the best villages of the Côte des Blanc. He describes these villages as the star sites where the Chardonnay varietal grows—the Grand Crus of Avize, Oger, Le Mesnil-sur-Oger and Cramant. This heady combination—with an eight-year minimum of cellar ageing on the lees—birth aromas of apricots and nectarine that segue to saline minerality and a spicy, roasted finish. 

With the Concordia Brut—so named because of the families working in concert—a blend of 60 per cent Chardonnay and 40 per cent Pinot Noir offers a nose of white fruit and peony accents. “This wine came from a 2021 harvest, and was aged for four years on the lees—with a low, low, dosage of between four to five grammes per litre, making it healthier.” 

Today, Champagne Barons de Rothschild are found in 95 countries around the world, and have found a place on the wine lists of many Michelin-starred restaurants and the world’s best wine merchants. With its 2014 Rare Collection rosé, approximately six per cent of Pinot Noir from Ambonnay—the ‘holy land of Pinot Noir’—are blended with Chardonnay in a dedicated cuverie (fermenting room) at the estate. In a year, Mairesse estimates that they produce around 2,000 ‘and a few’ bottles of this rosé, a fairly limited run. “So, I’m very proud to share this rosé, very tasty with great delicacy, a bit of red fruits and some spicy notes—the product of between two and ten years of winemaking before its release.” 

There was time yet, over the dinner, for two stellar Pauillac reds to make their appearance. The first, a 2015 Clerc Milon, was the result of a 23-day-long harvest, necessary because of uneven rain and ripening, which resulted in the longest harvest period at Chateau Clerc Milon in living memory. A just reward of the patient harvest was magnificent grapes with their well-rounded tannins and great intensity of red and black fruit aromas. 

Following the 1853 purchase of Château Mouton by Baron Nathaniel de Rothschild, Château Mouton Rothschild had achieved several notable firsts: bottling the harvest at its chateau from 1921, and two decades later, having artists create the labels for the vintage year. “People said the idea was amazing,” Mairesse says of the seminal year. 

“The family then decided each year to find somebody to make something new—and if you go to Château Mouton Rothschild today, you can see all the paintings from 1945 till today.” For the 2015 vintage, with its label illustrated by the German contemporary artist Gerhard Richter, Mairesse refers to it as ‘a big vintage’ in which deep, dark colours lead into an offering of wild blackberries and liquorice on the nose, with a fresh, full-bodied and silky mouthfeel with a superlative long finish, one which Mairesse notes, will arrive at ‘its top approach’ in about a decade from now. 

Champagne Barons de Rothschild

Photography by The Spacemen