Our
thanks to Jenny Heijmans, a wine label collector for almost 30
years, for her gracious sharing of these wonderful labels with
us. It is the the contributions of people like Jenny that truly
helps to make our site a community. You can email Jenny at jenny.hmns@planet.nl
Prior to 1924, Mouton Rothschild sold each vintage in barrels
to the negotiants in Bordeaux. For the 1924 vintage, Baron Phillippe
de Rothschild decided to bottle his entire vintage on the property.
This was a first in Bordeaux and in celebration of this historic
moment, he had Jean Carlu design the very first "Art" label
for Mouton. The rest, as they say is history.
Only 2 vintages have not had Artist's labels: 1953 with celebrated
the initial purchase of the Mouton property and 1977 when the Queen
Mother stayed at Mouton and the baron dedicated that year's vintage
to her.
NOTE: Mouton forces Stratsplace to remove labels !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Betsy and I were at home one day when the mailman showed up
with a registered letter. We looked at the return address and
saw it was from Mouton Rothschild !! Chuckle, even the mailman
commented about getting a letter from a "Baron". We
opened the letter to find out it was from the their lawyer !!
They stated that we were infringing on their Trademark and thus
had to remove all labels prior to 1990.
I wrote them back saying that:
- Stratsplace is a noncommercial sited dedicated to the love
of wine and we were simply sharing the beauty of these labels
and their significant place in wine history with all of our
readers.
- We in no way were trying to benefit economically from their
presence.
- The labels came from both our collection and those of others
that had in fact purchased the bottles of wine and thus we
felt that displaying them here on Stratsplace was just the
same as displaying them in our homes for others to see and
enjoy.
They wrote back saying that we could only display the labels
from 1990 to 1999. This really confused us. If they would allow
us to display these, they why can't we display the ones prior
to this ?
Anyway, the end result is that Betsy and I pay for this entire
site and there was no way we could risk any legal repercussions
... thus .. the labels are now history. This is a real shame
for it deprives the millions of visitors to our site from enjoying
these significant parts of wine history.
If you perhaps have any comments about this action, you can
find the Rotschild website at http://www.bpdr.com/
Art & Betsy |
