Rothschild teams up with HK Ritz-Carlton

Champagne Barons de Rothschild has furthered its collaboration with the Ritz-Carlton Hotel group and is set list its ‘Ritz Reserve’ range at the Ritz-Carlton Hong Kong before the end of the year.

Philippe Sereys de Rothschild

Speaking to dbHK before flying off to Vietnam, president of Chateau Mouton Rothschild, Baron Philippe de Sereys Rothschild said the collaboration with the Ritz-Carlton group was going “splendidly” and that Hong Kong was a key market for his Chardonnay-focused cuvées.

“Hong Kong is phenomenal for our Champagnes, consumers just can’t get enough. Bubbles do tend to lag behind still red wines in this part of the world and we don’t have the stock to simply invade the market, but they appreciate Chardonnay’s elegant style and it does go extremely well with Cantonese food.”

The partnership with the Ritz-Carlton Hong Kong – the highest hotel in the world with 118 floors – follows on from the launches in London and Paris earlier this year and will see the new Rothschild Ritz Reserve collection listed throughout the Ritz Carlton by the end of 2016 or early 2017.

The range includes a Brut NV, Rose NV and Blanc de Blancs NV and there is talk of an Extra Brut and a 2008 vintage arriving later on in 2017.

Established in 2003, the Champagne house is currently at a “cruising speed” of producing 400,000 bottles a year which typically spend four or five years on the lees before release and have high percentages of Chardonnay, blended by ex-Ruinart cellar master, Jean Philippe Moulin.

“Chardonnay is a fabulous varietal and makes the most elegant wines,” said de Sereys Rothschild. “It has a wonderful, fresh, structured elegance. The difficult thing is you need to age it quite a lot but we’re in no hurry, we are obsessed with getting a lovely, round expression.”

Champagne Barons de Rothschild is made up of the three French branches of the family who individually own a number of wine brands and classed growth estates, including Chateau Mouton, Chateau Lafite and Chateau Clarke.

“It’s a family business so we can debate things for a very long time – like all families in fact and ours is no different. It took us 18 months to decide on the colour of the bottle for instance. But this is the only venture done by different branches of the family and it’s our unifying project.

“We want to make the best product we can because it has our name on it.”