In the mid-16th century, it was owned by the nobleman Joseph Saubat de Pommiers. After his death, his widow Jeanne de Gasq married the notary Jacques de Ségur (+1691) from the famous noble family in 1670 and brought Lafite as her dowry. At this time, there were already a small number of vines, but it was only between 1670 and 1680 that vineyards were planted on a larger scale. A piece of land called "Clos de Mouton" later became Château Mouton-Rothschild. In 1695, his son Alexandre de Ségur married Marie-Thérèse de Clauzel, the heiress of Château Latour. At this time, three of the four Premiers Crus classified in 1855 belonged to the estate.
First successes
A productive vineyard can be traced back to at least 1707, as a bottle from this vintage has been found. Thanks to greatly improved viticultural techniques, the first successes were achieved from the 1720s onwards. Lafite wine was marketed abroad (particularly in England). It was also appreciated by the English Prime Minister Sir Robert Walpole (1676-1745), who ordered a barrel of Lafite (225 litres) every three months between 1732 and 1733. It was only later that it became known at the royal court in Versailles. There is a nice story about how this came about. A doctor prescribed wine to Marshal Richelieu (1696-1788) as " the best and most pleasant of all tonics". After a long journey by the Marshal, King Louis XV (1710-1774) remarked on his return that Richelieu " looked 25 years younger than before his departure". He remarked: " I have found the famous fountain of youth. The wine of Château Lafite is a noble tonic, delicious and comparable to the ambrosia of the gods of Olympus". The royal mistress Madame Pompadour (1721-1764) served Lafite wine at her intimate dinners. And her successor Madame du Barry (1743-1793) also favoured this wine.
Visit from Thomas Jefferson
After his death in 1755, the Marquis Ségur's estate was divided among his four daughters, whereby Lafite and Latour were separated again, but were still managed together until 1785. Lafite fell to Comte Nicolas Marie Alexandre de Ségur, the son of the marquis's eldest daughter. He sold it in 1784 to his relative Nicolas Pierre de Pichard (+1794), the first President of the Bordeaux Parliament. Shortly afterwards, the estate was described in an essay as the "most beautiful vineyard in the universe". At this time, the future US President Thomas Jefferson (1743-1826) was his country's ambassador to France and collected information about Château Lafite, among other things. Finally, the Ségur family's rule over the estate came to an end with the execution of Nicolas Pierre de Pichard by guillotine on 30 June 1794 by the Revolutionary Regime.
Finding old vintages
In the spring of 1985, the artist manager Hardy Rodenstock (1941-2018) received a phone call about the discovery of 12 very old vintages of fine wines. These had been found walled up in a cellar wall in Paris. They were wines from the renowned French wine estates Château Lafite-Rothschild, Château Mouton-Rothschild and Château d'Yquem from the 1784 and 1787 vintages from the estate of Thomas Jefferson. In 1988, the American billionaire William Koch (*1940) bought four bottles of Château Lafite-Rothschild and Château Mouton-Rothschild from the 1784 and 1787 vintages from the US wine auction house Chicago Wine Company, including bottles from this cellar find. Koch had them examined by employees of the Thomas Jefferson Foundation in Monticello (Virginia). They expressed doubts about the authenticity of the bottles. This began a long history of forgery accusations and lawsuits. To this day, however, the facts have not been clarified 100% beyond doubt (see Hardy Rodenstock for more details).
In the middle of the 16th century, it was owned by the nobleman Joseph Saubat de Pommiers. After his death, his widow Jeanne de Gasq married the notary Jacques de Ségur (+1691) from the famous noble family in 1670 and brought Lafite as her dowry. At this time, there were already a small number of vines, but it was only between 1670 and 1680 that vineyards were planted on a larger scale. A piece of land called "Clos de Mouton" later became Château Mouton-Rothschild. In 1695, his son Alexandre de Ségur married Marie-Thérèse de Clauzel, the heiress of Château Latour. At this time, three of the four Premiers Crus classified in 1855 belonged to the estate.
Bordeaux classification 1855
The property was auctioned off and acquired by the Dutch citizen Jean de Witt, who only kept it for a short time. From 1800 onwards, the owners were Baron Jean Arend de Vos Van Steenvwyck, Othon Guillaume Jean Berg, Jean Goll de Franckenstein, Madame Barbe-Rosalie Lemaire (from 1818) and the banker Aimé-Eugène Vanlerberghe (from 1821). The latter, however, did not appear officially for tax reasons, but instead was the banker Samuel Scott. It was during this period that the famous Bordeaux classification took place in 1855, when the estate was one of only four to be ennobled as a "Premier Cru". In the absolute (unofficial) ranking, it was even at the top and was considered "the best site in the Médoc, producing the best wine in the Bordeaux region". The "eternal rival" Château Mouton-Rothschild was only ranked second "Deuxième Cru" at the time.
Purchase by James de Rothschild
In 1868, the auction of Château Lafite was announced as part of the succession of Ignace-Joseph Vanlerberghe. However, no bids were received at the first auction on 20 July. The second auction then took place on 8 August, with an opening bid of 3.25 million francs including the Carruades vineyard. The winning bidder was James de Rothschild (1792-1868), a Parisian banker, for the sum of 4.8 million francs including taxes. James was one of the five sons of Mayer Amschel Rothschild (1744-1812), the founder of the Rothschild dynasty, and established the main French line. Incidentally, his son-in-law and nephew Nathaniel de Rothschild (1812-1870), who had been working in his father-in-law's bank in Paris since 1850, had already acquired Château Mouton-Rothschild 15 years earlier in 1853 (it is said that he also bid for Château Lafite at the auction through an intermediary). The Rothschild bank in Paris resided in the "Rue Laffitte" - and according to legend, this was one of the reasons for the purchase.
James de Rothschild had been interested in this vineyard for a long time. The first attempt to buy it was made in 1830, but was rejected by the (supposed) owner at the time, Samuel Scott. Now, 38 years later, it had finally worked out. The new owner added his own name and called the estate "Château Lafite-Rothschild". He died just three months later and allegedly never saw the estate once. He was succeeded by his three sons Alphonse, Gustave and Edmond Rothschild (1845-1934). The latter revitalised viticulture in Israel with 60 million gold francs in 1882. From the last third of the 19th century, a series of medium to large-scale disasters occurred. It began with phylloxera, continued almost seamlessly with downy mildew, then organised fraud with counterfeit Lafite wines, the First World War from 1914 to 1918 and the Great Depression in the 1930s.
Occupation by German troops
During the Second World War, the Médoc region was occupied by German troops in 1940. Among other things, the two Rothschild estates were placed under public administration. After the end of the war, the Edmonds family entrusted their grandson Elie Robert de Rothschild (1917-2007) with the management of the estate. He engaged the famous oenologist Professor Émile Peynaud (1912-2004) as a consultant. The reconstruction of the run-down estate progressed rapidly. For the first time in 80 years, since the Rothschilds had owned the estate, a dividend was paid to the shareholders in 1948. Baron Elie was one of the main figures in the difficult reconstruction of the market. He took part in the tastings in London as a member and was a founding member of the "Commanderie du Bontemps du Médoc" (wine brotherhood) in 1950. In 1953, he fuelled the "eternal conflict" between Mouton and Lafite by proposing that Mouton be excluded from the "Association of Five" (the four Premiers Crus and Mouton at the time) because it was not a Premier Cru.
Many innovations
The 1955 vintage was a very great wine, but the next year, 1956, like many other Bordeaux vineyards, brought another enormous setback due to extreme frost temperatures of up to minus 35 °Celsius. But the upswing was unstoppable. In 1975, Elie handed over the reins to his nephew Eric de Rothschild (*1940). He provided new impetus and gradually modernised the entire technical team. New plantings were made in the vineyards and improved fertilisers and sophisticated plant protection methods were introduced. A new circular wine cellar was built by the star architect Ricardo Bofill. In 1994, Charles Chevallier was appointed cellar master. The family business "Domaines Barons de Rothschild" (DBR) expanded considerably by acquiring several wine estates in Germany and abroad. These include the Chilean vineyard Los Vascos in the Colchagua area.
Vineyards
The vineyards cover around 100 hectares of vines, which are locally divided into three larger areas. These are the vineyards around the Château itself, those near Carruades and a smaller part in St. Estèphe. Due to a special authorisation, the St. Estèphe wines are also considered to be Pauillac wines. The vineyards are planted with Cabernet Sauvignon (71%), Merlot (25%), Cabernet Franc (3%) and Petit Verdot (1%). The average age of the vines is 40 years. All younger vines under ten years of age are not used for the Grand Vin. The first secret of the outstanding quality is the soil, these are deep gravel banks on limestone. Other important components are the age of the vines, a yield limit of 40 to 45 hectolitres per hectare, the right time for harvesting the grapes, different for each variety, strict selection of the grapes, careful destemming, a fermentation temperature of no more than 30°C and over-pumping to extract the colouring substances. After fermentation, every single barrel is checked and tasted and only the very best are used for the first wine. The second quality goes into the second wine and the third goes into the low-priced DBR Collection line
Wines (first wine, second wine, DBR Collection)
The usual cuvée for the first wine is extremely dominant Cabernet Sauvignon (80-95%), as well as Merlot (5-20%), and Cabernet Franc and Petit Verdot (0-3%). The 1961 vintage was made from 100% Cabernet Sauvignon. The wine matures for 18 to 20 months in 100% new barriques. The barrels are made in the estate's own cooperage. The barrels are constantly topped up to compensate for shrinkage, and the wine is decanted two or three times into clean barrels and fined with beaten egg white. After ageing, six barrels are placed in one container at a time in order to achieve larger quantities of uniform quality through this levelling process. Between 15,000 and 20,000 cases are produced each year.
The second wine is called "Carruades de Lafite" (formerly "Moulin des Carruades") and is named after a vineyard that was hotly contested between the Château Lafite and Château Mouton estates around 1845 (see Rothschild). It has a higher proportion of Merlot and matures for 18 months in up to 15% new barriques. Between 20,000 and 30,000 cases are produced each year. Since 1995, the low-priced "DBR Collection" line has been marketed alongside the top wines. This group, labelled "Réserves des Barons", comprises the four wines Bordeaux rouge, Bordeaux blanc, Médoc and Pauillac.
Outstanding vintages
To this day, Château Lafite-Rothschild remains one of the best and most expensive red wines in the world, and has done so with almost unbelievable consistency for centuries. At a tasting, 36 different vintages dating back to 1799 were once tasted and compared. The astonishing result was a consistent quality of wines over a period of more than 150 years. Two vintages of the house are among the most expensive wines in the world. For a long time, the record holder was a 1787 vintage, which was sold at a Christie's auction in 1985 for $160,000 (£105,000). The bottle, which came from the estate of Thomas Jefferson (1743-1826), went to the US publisher Malcolm Forbes (1919-1990). The record was broken in November 2010. In November 2010, the auction house Sotheby's Hong Kong sold three bottles from the 1869 vintage for 1.8 million Hong Kong dollars each. This equates to an incredible 232,692 US dollars.
Outstanding vintages of Château Lafite-Rothschild from older times include 1847, 1848, 1858, 1864, 1869, 1870 (!), 1876, 1899, 1900, 1906, 1926 and 1929. More recent vintages include 1945, 1947, 1949, 1955, 1959, 1960, 1961, 1975, 1976, 1979, 1982 (100 points from Robert Parker), 1985, 1986 (100 PP), 1988, 1989, 1990 (100 PP), 1994, 1995, 1996 (100 PP), 1997, 1998, 1999, 2000 (100 PP), 2002, 2003 and 2005. Some of the wines from the 1980s onwards have not yet reached their peak. These are - as was once aptly remarked - "wines for the heirs".
Château Lafite-Rothschild: By Ken Case - Own work, Public domain, Link
Mayer Amschel Rothschild: By Elbert Hubbard, Public domain, Link
James de Rothschild: By Elbert Hubbard, Public domain, Link
Nathaniel de Rothschild: From Maull & Polyblank, Public domain, Link
Bottles: Last Bottle
