Bottle art for premium wine

This year's Chateau Mouton Rothschild 2000 wine has been launched featuring an innovative bottle-making technology designed to enhance its appeal.

The Chateau Mouton Rothschild 2000 made its debut at a gala dinner and auction in the presence of Former First Lady of France, Madame Georges Pompidou. The launch of the wine is keenly awaited by the industry each year, not only for the quality of its wine, but also for its innovative labelling.

The launch of a Chateau Mouton Rothschild vintage is always an event, both in wine and art: each year since 1945, a leading contemporary painter has created an original work to illustrate the Mouton Rothschild label. But this year, in a departure from tradition to celebrate the millennium, Baroness Philippine has decided to turn the bottle into a valuable work of art.

The glass bottle for this vintage is adorned with a treasure from the Museum of Wine in Art at Mouton. The little "Augsburg Ram", a chased silver-gilt drinking vessel created around 1590 by Jakob Schenauer, a German master goldsmith has been reproduced on the bottle using a new technique for enamelling in relief.

In order to reproduce all the refinement and lustre of the original work, after four months of research, the glassmaker B.S.N. came up with a new technique for enamelling in relief, calling for custom-made tools and work of great precision. The particularly complex method for firing the gold and enamel has produced what the wine company describes as a "scintillating texture and an incomparable capacity to catch the light".​

A golden ring around the black foil reproduces the design engraved on the ram's collar and recalls the chased volutes of its body. The arms, the name, the vintage and the owner's signature have been screen-printed in gold. The bottle, of high-quality, heavy glass, has been slightly remodelled at the shoulder in the shape of a truncated cone. As proof of its authenticity, the Chateau Mouton Rothschild name is engraved in the base.