Behind the headlines: DBR Lafite expands into Chablis

Individually, the various investments made by Domaines Baron de Rothschild (Lafite) over the past few months have been headline news, but curiously little seems to have been discussed about the expansion of the company in 2023 as a whole – and what it might say about their strategy going forward.

Certainly this has been a busy year.

First we had, back in the summer of 2023, news that the parent companies behind two Pauillac First Growths – Artemis Domaines and DBR, so Latour and Lafite – were in the final stages of  a property deal that would see Domaine William Fèvre, the Chablis house that was established in 1959 and sold to Artemis in 2022, transferred to Rothschild ownership.

Then in early November, a separate deal saw DBR (Lafite) become minority shareholders of a new entity created by the merger of Waddesdon Wine and Goedhuis & Co in the UK – Waddesdon known for its hospitality business and ontrade connections, Goedhuis for its private client network.

This merger is not simply with the Lafite branch of the Rothschild family, as was confirmed to me at the time, ‘The Rothschild Foundation (the UK based charitable foundation) has always been the majority shareholder in Waddesdon Wine, with Lafite maintaining a minority position.  This arrangement is mirrored in the new structure.  There has always been an exceptionally close working relationship with Chateau Mouton Rothschild and Baron Edmond de Rothschild (and Lafite), and those close family links have only been reinforced further with this merger’.

As minority shareholders (with 6%), DBR will be non operational in the new company going forward, with the UK branch of the family under Lord Jacob’s leadership running things independently, but for the Rothschild family as a whole, it’s an interesting new direction. Back in Bordeaux meanwhile, as of the end of November 2023, Antoine Granger from William Fèvre will be joining the parent company of DBR as International Commercial Director of Domaines & Châteaux. Granger’s role will be to build and oversee the distribution of all of the group’s wines, meaning the Bordeaux châteaux as well as the international wines, and the new additions to the wider French portfolio.

Granger brings with him experience not just at William Fèvre but also Groupe Arvitis (that includes Bordeaux merchant houses CVBG and Dourthe Kressmann), and is to be based between Bordeaux and Paris, allowing easy reach to Chablis as well as the team in Bordeaux. Jean-Sébastien Philippe – who joined from Estates & Châteaux a few years ago – will continue to oversee châteaux wines working with DBR’s négociant partners on the Place de Bordeaux – as well as focusing on growing the US market (no doubt increasingly important as the Chinese market continues its slow down).

Sales and Acquisitions
Backing up, it’s worth looking at how this fits into Artemis Domaine’s strategy also. William Fèvre was originally part of a deal that also saw the acquisition of the Henriot Champagne family of wines which included Burgundy’s Bouchard Père & Fils and Oregon’s Beaux Frères (who in turn had bought William Fèvre in the 1990s under the direction of Joseph Henriot).

Artemis has since resold not just Fèvre but also Henriot (in a similar way, it is worth noting, as they did in Bordeaux after purchasing the Baronne Guichard estates of Chateaux Siaurac in Lalande-de-Pomerol, Le Prieuré in Saint Emilion and Vray Croix de Gay on the Pomerol plateau in 2014, reselling all three in 2020 to Suravenir, owner of Calon Ségur and Capbern in St-Estèphe).

Understanding the strategy
One of my question wasn’t so much why DBR was buying William Fèvre but why Artemis was selling.

I spoke with somebody familiar with both businesses, who wished to remain anonymous, who told me, “Artemis is a global conglomerate, part of a far larger group owned by François Pinault, that will have an in-house M&A team and a clear strategy of buying estates of a certain size, prestige level, average bottle price and so on. For whatever reason, despite its prestige, William Fèvre didn’t fit their strategy. DBR Lafite on the other hand, while obviously a hugely successful company, is a smaller, family-run business, and the scale of their ambitions will be similarly different. Goedhuis gives a further confirmation of this – they have chosen to buy a successful business with one person’s name on the door and highly personal long-standing relationships with final clients. It’s a type and scale of business that Lafite understands, and responds to”

There is no doubt another huge draw for Lafite. William Fèvre is one of the larger producers in the northern Burgundian appellation of Chablis, with 78ha of vineyards, 15.9ha of which are classified Premier Cru and 15.2ha as Grand Cru. As is typical in Burgundy, some of these vines are rented rather than owned, and as a producer of prestigious white wines it fills an obvious gap in the Lafite portfolio, Sauternes aside.

“If you are a Rothschild, you are looking for classical icon names – so for whites that would have to be Burgundy or the Loire,” my anonymous source continued.

Speaking about the acquisition when it was formally announced, Saskia de Rothschild, CEO of DBR Lafite, said they would be “truly honoured” to write a new chapter in the history of Domaine William Fèvre. She said its iconic terroir of Grand Cru, Premier Cru and Chablis Village plots and long history of producing great white wines as well “strong investment in sustainable development”, convinced the team to “continue our winemaking story towards this more northern region”.

“Wines from the Chablis vineyards are magical: we really hope we can soon learn from this terroir and ecosystem whose development we have admired over the recent years and whose vigneron approach and family style we love,” she said.

“Cultivate our land to hand over to the next generation is our objective at DBR Lafite, from our vines to our commercial strategy,’ says de Rothschild, ‘today; more than ever, we need to be close to our partners who share our wines in France and across the world… with a single team working towards the same goals”.

This brings DBR Lafite holdings to:

• Five estates in Bordeaux  (Château Lafite Rothschild, Château Duhart-Milon, Château Rieussec, Château Paradis Casseuil and Château L’Évangile).
• Languedoc, Domaine d’Aussières, Languedoc.
• Viña Los Vascos in Chile.
• Bodegas Caro in Argentina.
• Domaine de Long Dai in China.
• Domaine William Fèvre Chablis.
• Minority shareholders Goedhuis-Waddesdon.