Baron Elie de Rothschild Is Dead at 90

Baron Elie de Rothschild - Remy de la Mauviniere/Associated Press, 1979



Baron Elie de Rothschild Is Dead at 90
By ERIC ASIMOV

Baron Elie de Rothschild, who oversaw the restoration and ascent of the renowned wine estate Château Lafite Rothschild after World War II, died Monday while on a hunting trip near the village of Scharnitz, in the Austrian Alps. He was 90.
The cause was a heart attack, the Tyrolean police told The Associated Press.
When Baron Elie took over Lafite in the village of Pauillac in 1946, the devastation of the war was only the most recent of the troubles faced by the estate. Since Château Lafite was bought in 1868 and rechristened Lafite Rothschild by Baron James de Rothschild of the French branch of the banking family, its difficulties had been numerous.
Phylloxera, a ravenous aphid that ravaged European vineyards in the late 19th century, hit Lafite hard. The vineyards were replanted, but soon after came World War I and then the Great Depression, which sent the wine market spiraling downward.
Even so, the estate was able to produce some fine bottles, including the vintages of 1920, 1924, 1926, 1929, 1933, 1934 and 1939. But World War II caused difficulties far beyond those endured before. Perhaps because of the Rothschilds’ Jewish heritage, the Germans seized Lafite and the neighboring Mouton Rothschild, run by a different branch of the family, in 1940, and used the estates to garrison their troops. Though wine was made during the war, vineyards were neglected and the cellars were ransacked.
When the Germans evacuated France, the family reclaimed the estate, and Baron Elie took charge of the recovery effort, focusing on restoring the vineyards, buildings and equipment.
“Baron Elie was a major shaper of events in the difficult reconstitution of the fine wine market,” the estate says in its online history of Lafite (www.lafite.com). While there were good years, like 1947, 1949, 1953, 1959 and 1961, the Lafite vintages of the 1960s and 70s were characterized by a surprising inconsistency. Baron Elie ceded control of the estate to his nephew, Eric de Rothschild, in the mid-1970s.
Baron Elie Robert de Rothschild was born on May 29, 1917. Both he and his older brother, Alain, were captured by the Germans during World War II and spent much of it at Colditz Castle, Germany’s most secure prison. While there he proposed marriage by mail to his childhood sweetheart, Liliane Fould-Springer. They were married by proxy in separate ceremonies in 1941 and 1942. The baroness died in 2003. Baron Elie is survived by a son, Nathaniel; two daughters, Elisabeth and Nelly; and five grandchildren.
Baron Elie retained a hand in the family’s banking enterprise, working with his cousin Guy, the patriarch of the family, who died earlier this year, and Alain, who died in 1982. A stylish man given to English suits and a trim mustache, he was better known as a sportsman who enjoyed playing polo and for raising money for the United Jewish Appeal.
“It is because Guy spends 11 months out of 12 at the office that Alain and Elie are able to spend one month out of 12 there,” a family friend once remarked.
One thing that particularly disturbed Baron Elie was the desire of wine specialists to label every vintage.
“This is good, this year is bad,” he said in 1966. “If we bottle it, we consider the product good.”

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