Personalities

Brand builder Prince Robert of Luxembourg
"Magnum" №6-7(9) 2006

Can traditions of Bordeaux become a base for a new class of wines which answer requirements of modern times?

Is it possible to create authentic, strong, quality Bordeaux brands that can compete with major players in the world? Prince Robert of Luxembourg with his jewel chateaux of Haut-Brion La Mission Haut-Brion and Laville Haut-Brion, may seem as a least possible candidate for the pioneering role. Yet it was he who offered a new range of wines with a claim of first luxury Bordeaux brand — something that nobody else had courage to do before.

In 1935 American financier Clarence Dillon acquired Chateau Haut-Brion, a legendary Graves vineyard. Seventy years later his great grandson, Prince Robert of Luxembourg started a new chapter in family history. He announced the creation of Clarence Dillon Wines company and production of negociant wines under the name of Clarendelle.

Why is Prince Robert’s initiative so special? The thing is Clarendelle project is played by different rules. It is set apart from traditional negociant businesses just as much as Haut-Brion from other Bordeaux wines. Prince Robert was the first in the region who decided to enter the segment of premium wine brands — which at the moment is comfortably divided between New World producers.

Being a great speaker, Prince Robert discusses history of Bordeaux and Internet wine blogs with the same ease. His views are open, but founded on traditional values. He lives in Geneva, yet visits Bordeaux at least once a month. In the end, there is nothing strange that he was first and brave enough to launch Bordeaux wines on the new orbit. One must be able to see the product from outside in order to understand its inner value.

- I personally started to work for family business in 1997. So it took me quite a few years just to understand what I was doing because although I love wine, I need to understand how business works. And that took me the first 3-4 years. After that it took time to start to run business, to take over the responsibilities. The next step was to look for developing a new company. I saw the development of the other Bordeaux companies that were all going abroad, but I didn’t want to dilute the quality of what we do. We have estates in Bordeaux since 1935 so I thought that if we were to do something, it would be either to buy an estate here in Bordeaux (which we continue to look at) or start to produce wines different in the style to what we normally produce.

We’ve always produced wine that was mainly sold to friends of family. It was obviously not Chateau Haut-Brion, but it still had the same elegance and balance I’m particularly attracted to. I like all kinds of wine, I like discovering wines from around the world but ultimately you want a familiar bottle. I also realized that being in different places it is difficult to be able to find the kind of wines with regularity that I wanted. I am not saying the regularity that tastes exactly the same, but regularity of style, and quality and dependability. I thought this was something we could do.

The project was not something that happened overnight. I began thinking about it seriously in 2001-2002. We made an announcement about new company last April and started with red wine of 2002, a small quantity of 40,000 bottles.

There is another issue. There’s more and more wine from around the world, yet we are losing on typicity and elegance. Today we can taste wines from South Africa, Australia, Argentina, and many times they strike as the same. They are fruit driven and concentrated. I remember talking to an American distributor about this project. He said, "Perfect. Finally in Bordeaux you can make wine like everywhere else. Make a fruit forward Bordeaux wine, put Merlot on the label and sell it". I said this was the opposite of what I was going to do. It is easy to make wine called Petit Brion, put Merlot on the label and make a fruit forward wine, and yes, I will have a success. But I am building a brand distinct from chateau wines. It is going to be a long term investment for us. I can never compete with the New World wines, but I believe that from our history and our terroir we have inherited this ability to produce wines of certain balance, of certain elegance. They are lighter wines that ultimately the consumer will return to.

I still believe today that the Bordeaux terroir is producing the greatest wines in the world. I’m chauvinistic that way. I can say it more easily because I am not from Bordeaux. I’m half of Luxembourg origin, half American.

There is a model I use also for production of Clarendelle. First, the name comes from the name of my great grandfather. There is also a link with ’claret’. The irony of what I’m saying is that the notion of claret of born here, in Chateau Haut-Brion. It was a new style of wine, now it’s become classic. Clarendelle have modern image but it is ultimately based on the same tradition of winemaking. Californian and Australian winemakers constantly develop premium brands and there was no such a thing for Bordeaux. Although I’m really in the brand world, this is something I call Grand Marque de Terroir reflecting the style of wines we produce.

I also started to taste base wines available from different producers and I found that we could source great quality — not necessarily in great quantity, but when we assemble these wines (like we do to produce our estate wines) we can get very good wine. Producers benefit from selling us small volumes as we have a way to merit quality and the wine is not put into a much larger assemblage and diluted. We don’t need to negotiate prices down. An aim is to source good wines, secure a certain tradition of wine making and let certain people make a living.

- I think you are right. It is the reputation of the mother company, Clarence Dillon, and this is something I am very conscious of. We try not to make mistakes within our estates, and with these new wines. It is very important for us and puts extra pressure.

On the other hand, there is more of a trust policy, of the will for the consumer. We are not only bringing certain history, but we are putting a stamp of quality. A lot of people in Bordeaux said to me, why take the risk? I think if anyone has the responsibility to do something like this, it should be one of the top chateaux. Obviously, my reasoning has to be based on a strong business policy to build a business, but that cannot survive unless you have the quality. Today consumers are very savvy. They know immediately. Someone’s got a bottle of Clarendelle in Moscow or London, they put a blog up and say what they think. Having said that, there is a certain price point that is obviously different from the great growths. Producers in the United States, in Australia, in South Africa have been very successful with premium brands, and I don’t see why France, in particular Bordeaux which is the largest wine region in the world, can’t produce a wine of quality and of particular price sector.

- Do I fear confusion? No, I think we’ve been very clear in all our communication vis-a-vis. Yes, there are wines from our estates that do go into red Clarendelle, but that’s not something that we particularly communicate.

If we wanted to try to mislead people, we would have used the name Haut-Brion or something like that on our label. However we never wanted to sell on the reputation of our estates. We want to be able to build up a confidence of consumer from our know-how and the family history. This is why I called the wine Clarendelle. Our family has 70 years of history with Chateau Haut Brion. It is important to communicate this because that’s where my love of wine and my understanding of a style of wine that I like today came from. It’s formed my palate, it’s our inspiration. But I don’t think there will be confusion. We try to be as clear as possible by offering information on the label, by saying what is exactly in the bottle, talking about our history, because that’s important.

- As I already mentioned, we started with a small volume of red wine from 2002 vintage. In 2003 we had 180,000 bottles of red. I imagine it will be the same in 2004, and in 2005 there will be much more. But it is also going to be dependent on the quality of wine and on the market. We need to build quality in order for the business to be successful and also to make sure we can source this quality through building up partnerships, building up a notion of quality control, quality charters. Our managing director Claude Boudamani was making wine in South America and China. Valerie Aigron, commercial director, has banking background and was a winemaker in India. I appreciate their modern approach. Yet we are not revolutionaries in France. The model we are using as a wine company is the Champagne model where we are sourcing a product with a notion of brand. We are trying to attain the status of successful Champagne brands.

Going back to production volumes, the majority will be red wine. We produced very little white wine in 2004, for 2005 the figure will grow to 110,000 bottles. The volume for rose will be slightly less — 97,000 bottles. Amber wine’s production is 20,000 bottles.

- Originally the idea was to be mostly international because consumers in the United States, in Asia understand the notion of brands. They have wines at this price point. But, for example, in the US market out of 100 deluxe premium wines at the price between 15 and 25 dollars that might be producing on average 50,000 cases, there are 2 French wines and neither of them from Bordeaux. Seems extraordinary. There was room for someone to try something new and I don’t think you have to be scared. Many people in Bordeaux told me I was crazy and continue to do so. But I believe in what I’m trying to do and I have a great fortune of being surrounded by a team of people who also believe in what we are trying to do. That’s an important part.

The response that we immediately received from the American and Asian markets was very positive. I did not expect to have rapid response from traditional markets like France or the UK. Having said that, as soon as we started to speak about what we were doing in France and in the UK, there was interest. People came to us saying there were interested and they were ready to take our wines for their markets. We were, of course, delighted. Since then we had very good response for quality from tasting by well known journalists. Big restaurants, like the Ducasse group and Bocuse have taken all our wines. In Europe the notion of brand is almost a pejorative word. This is not the case in the New World, in the United States. I want friends who know that for their 15 euros they will have a bottle of wine of a certain quality.

- First of all, people must understand what we are trying to do. It’s one thing to produce a new wine and another — have people to understand. Our wines are very much in tradition of what we’ve done in the past — with the notion of elegance, with the same grape varieties that we have for estate wines. We are very pleased to start working in Russia and specifically with DP-Trade. They understand philosophy of family winemaking and that’s an important policy for us.

- Last time I visited your country in 2003, for St Petersburg anniversary. It’s the matter of finding the right time. Maybe next year I will try to come to Moscow.