工作很忙，无聊的时候就会想喝酒。那天下班去了趟“乐购”——一家虎门新开的大型购物商场，看看那里有什么葡萄酒买，货架上的葡萄酒还很丰富，整整一排都摆满了，中外品牌的葡萄酒各占半壁江山。以本人在红酒方面的偏见，对国产品牌的红酒基本是不看的。

乐购的进口酒可算是国内超市中比较多的，有法国的、美国的、智利的、澳洲的等等。品种有白葡萄酒、干红、气酒等。价钱也比较适中，都是些几百块以下的。最便宜的一款法国VIN DE TABLE才30块人民币不到。而且法国VIN DE TABLE的酒很少出口，所以能在国内见到可算难得。

我每一瓶都看了看年份和生产国家，特别注意了那里的法国酒。大家都知道法国葡萄酒的分类很严格，在国内最主要的就是AOC的，其次就是VIN DE PAYS这个等级的。其实在法国VIN DE PAYS和VIN DE TABLE才是老百姓喝的酒，其中里面肯定有好东西。我决定买一瓶VIN DE PAYS回家和它约会。可是我对VIN DE PAYS的酒并没有太多的认识，在加上国内超市里面能买到怎么样的进口酒呢？我试着碰运气的心态挑了款最便宜的LA FLEUR RESSAC 2004 CAVERNET SAUVIGNON（VIN DE PAYS D’OC）。我还特别注意它的罐装地点：MIS EN BOUTEILLE PAR 法国酒厂罐装。OK 。买单，大家猜猜多少钱？？才39元人民币。便宜！比一款国内的名牌酒还便宜。好，回家开来试试！

回到家，迫不及待的拿出我那捷克水晶杯，切一块芝士。用酒刀割开锡盖，发现原来是橡胶酒塞，而不是我们常见的法国AOC的橡木塞，大概是为了节省成本吧。抽出酒塞，马上一股酒香扑鼻，细闻，一款典型的CAVERNET SAUVIGNON，但是比国产品牌的CAVERNET SAUVIGNON要浓郁点。

我将酒倒入酒杯，酒的颜色暗红，但酒体比较透明。摇了摇杯子，看看挂杯，不是那么明显，但也算过得去。闻了闻酒香，浓郁的果实味。我第一次喝法国单品的VIN DE PAYS CAVERNET SAUVIGNON，开始可能对VIN DE PAYS的酒都有些偏见，觉得它可能不如AOC的酒，但是发现原来VIN DE PAYS的酒性价比很高，而且它是单品葡萄，不像AOC那么复杂，很容易分辨出酒的特性，很简单，较适合初学品酒者。所以VIN DE PAYS在法国是老百姓的酒。这款酒口感有点偏酸，可能是CAVERNET的缘故，但是酒体十分强劲，酒味很浓郁，余味很长，一看标签，原来酒精度是13%。我一边品尝着美酒，一边吃着芝士，简直是绝配，口感无法形容，心里明白，呵呵。也许是累了，喝了半瓶后就觉得全身软软的，很舒服，有点醉熏熏的感觉，一个人和这款VIN DE PAYS D’OC约会腐败，真爽。

后来翻了翻我的法国红酒宝典，才知道原来VIN DE PAYS D’OC（中文译奥克地区）原来是法国西南Languedoc-Roussillon的地区餐酒，那里出产的红酒都比较浓郁，但是性价比很高。所以使我更加清晰的认识到，原来法国红酒不仅仅是波尔多、勃艮第的，也不仅仅是AOC 、五大名庄。其实真正法国红酒文化的基础的来自法国民间最纯朴、最便宜、最有味道VIN DE PAYS 甚至是VIN DE TABLE。只有这两个级别的酒的支持，才能形成法国AOC金字塔型的红酒文化。

两年前,我花了100多块人民币买了我人生中的第一瓶进口红酒--就是因为这瓶酒,让我变成一个葡萄酒的"酒鬼",也是这款波尔多右岸的酒，让我对法国的波尔多文化起浓厚的兴趣，所以她是“罪魁祸首”。因此，我忍不住在购买后三个月就把她消灭掉了。这是她生前的遗照，也给自己留点记忆。呵呵！

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再来一张纪念。两年后再拿起这张照片，很多想法，到底如果她现在又是怎么样子的味道呢？更加醇厚还是已经过期呢？哈哈，哪位酒友喝过这瓶酒啊？

张先生是香港人，他戴着斯文的眼镜，一席休闲装，耳朵上还别着个精致的蓝牙耳机，令人感到有文化的气质。听说他还有十六分之一的爱新觉罗血统呢。张先生十分健谈，滔滔不绝，也许因为他学的是欧洲文化，加上在欧洲的生活经历给他对葡萄酒文化有了最感性的认识。

张先生自己对葡萄酒文化有自己独特的见解。他十分讨厌国内红酒加雪碧、喝XO像灌啤酒似的饮酒文化，他说那不是喝酒，是对酒的一种糟蹋。喝葡萄酒是要享受，是为了享受生活，享受美食，享受上帝赐予人们的物质和精神。所以，他喝酒也十分挑剔，首先就是对杯子的选择，不管什么杯型的葡萄酒酒杯，最好是用水晶制作。也许水晶能给美酒带来一种神秘的力量，令美酒能发挥最高的潜能。其次是对食物的选择，由于那天YY没有做好充足的准备，张先生对品酒的配餐十分不满意。他说美酒和美食是相辅相成的，好的食物能为酒带来与众不同的味道，好酒也会给各色美食如虎添翼的感觉。喝酒不能一个人自己喝，要与人分享，要和志同道合的人分享。他认为，男人在一起聊天，无非是说女人、足球、汽车等，但如果是大家在一起share一瓶好酒时，所有的女人足球都靠一边站着，光谈论这杯酒可能酒可以享受美好的时光了。他还谈到了在德国，人们对葡萄酒的态度；在法国波尔多酒庄的葡萄园里喝酒的浪漫，说道了外国人和中国人对葡萄酒文化的不同理解，甚至还用流利的日语和参加酒会的ASKA畅谈日本文化。

关于如何品酒，张先生就以今天喝的酒为例子做了自己对品酒的解读：喝酒千万不要听听信他人的评价。喝酒不是斗酒，自己的感觉才是最重要的，也许你可以感觉到奶油味、也许他可以感觉到腐乳味。大家都把自己的感觉说出来，互相分享，那才能喝出感觉。因此，他不喜欢和那些所谓的品酒家喝，因为那些品酒师也许要为了某些商业的利益出卖了自己的品味。

畅谈之中，当然是有美酒陪伴咯。YY准备了四款冰冻白葡萄酒：法国 花悦-2004 白葡萄酒 Lafleur Gloria VDP Blanc(white)-2004；智利 波特-2004 白葡萄酒 Chardonnay(white)-2004；澳洲 珍品-2004 白葡萄酒 Chardonnay Colombard(white)-2004；意大利 斯特拉-2002 白葡萄酒 Citra-Trebbiano(white)-2002。四款白酒，有三款是用最常见的Chardonnay酿造，在张先生的引导下，要我们品味Chardonnay的味道。什么是Chardonnay的味道？淡淡的果香、一丝牛油和奶酪味道、酸酸涩涩的、像蛋白质发酵般腐乳的味道……大家各抒己见，最后我们还喝了款我从来没有尝试过的Citra-Trebbiano(white)，意大利人有特有的粗放和性格，她有复杂的葡萄品种和特有的喝酒方式，体现出意大利人和法国人与众不同的浪漫……

隔着带水珠的杯子欣赏金黄剔透的美酒、闻着复杂的果香，回味美妙的口感，所有夏日的炎热都被这冰凉的美酒给征服了。

6.25号终于有机会喝了

在BOBO 的盛情邀请下，我决定参加她们举办的“张永恒先生—教你如何品尝葡萄酒”活动。在这个活动中，能喝到以下几种白葡萄酒，真是口水都流出的啊：

1.法国 花悦-2004 白葡萄酒 Lafleur Gloria VDP Blanc(white)-2004
葡萄品种: 雪当利Chardonnay
颜色：颜色明亮而有光泽。
气味：淡淡的果香,气味宜人。
口感：酒体柔顺，带果味。


2：智利 波特-2004 白葡萄酒 Chardonnay(white)-2004
葡萄品种: 雪当利Chardonnay
颜色：明亮的黄色反射着绿光
气味：带有成熟柏树果香，桃和香蕉等热带水果味，夹杂着一丝牛油和奶酪味道。
口感：充满桃和香蕉还有菠萝的清香，是一瓶柔滑、余韵悠长的好酒。酸度
和酒精度平衡恰到好处。
配餐建议：这是新鲜的白沙威浓好酒，适宜作为开胃酒全天候 皆适宜饮用。特别是配合吃一些带酸味的冷盘和海鲜，感觉更加完美。


3：澳洲 珍品-2004 白葡萄酒 Chardonnay Colombard(white)-2004
葡萄品种: 哥伦巴Colombard 雪当利Chardonnay
颜色：稍带绿色的浅黄
气味：带有成熟的蜜瓜和果仁特有的香气，以及诱人的橡木芳香。
口感：入口有清爽的、成熟的雪当利葡萄果香，酸度平衡恰倒好处，综合的 橡木味柔滑而持久。
饮用及配餐建议：温度最好在10℃-12℃。适合与亚洲美食、海鲜或清淡型菜肴配食。



4：意大利 斯特拉-2002 白葡萄酒 Citra-Trebbiano(white)-2002
葡萄品种:TREBBIANO D’ABRUZZO
颜色：浅黄色，透明而又有光泽。
气味：香浓的波尔多白葡萄酒，气味芳香，有酿酒香草橡木的香味和奇异的果香。
口感：清新爽口，干爽、典雅容易欣赏的意大利白酒。
饮用及配餐建议：温度最好在10℃-12℃。作为开胃酒，或者与海鲜配食都是完美的。

等待.......................................等待我喝完之后的酒评！

6.11号下午 那天好热，又好困，因为之前那天看了三场世界杯。

但是，酒还是要喝的。我们一起在澳红会聚会。搞了个澳洲SHIRAZ的单品会。期间为了庆祝德国世界杯，还特意喝了瓶德国金箔汽酒。那可是喝金子哦！！！！！！！！！！！！在这炎热的夏天喝冰冻的SPARKING WINE！爽！

那天喝了五款澳洲各地的SHIRAZ。其中第一款为混种SHIRAZ+CARBERNET。另外四瓶是单品SHIRAZ。好浓郁的澳洲酒，新鲜的感觉。最后澳红的老板娘还请客我们一瓶法国波尔多的酒。谢谢罗。好有口福！

德国金箔汽酒

澳洲SHIRAZ酒集合

还缺Ch?teau PRIEURE-LICHINE

葡萄品种: 佳美 

产国: 法国 

产区: 宝祖利 AOC: BEAUJOLAIS-VILLAGES

年份: 2001

打开瓶盖  十分清晰的水果香，颜色清淡，口味轻盈，有香蕉、薄荷的味道。十分典型的BEAUJOLAIS-VILLAGES村庄酒 

猜猜这两瓶大概多少钱？

非常超值  我买了6瓶了  呵呵   味道很好！我买才70！哈哈

名称：DOM.VOARICK 
种类: 红葡萄酒
品种: 黑品诺 佳美
规格: 瓶装750ML
产国: 法国
产区: 勃根地
年份: 2001

http://www.jointekwineshop.com/shop/detail.asp?wineno=46927635

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1924  JEAN CARLU
Born in 1900, Carlu came from a family of architects, his brother Jacques being responsible for the Palais de Chaillot in Paris. After a short time at the Ecole des Beaux-Arts, he began to specialise, at the age of seventeen, in poster design.
By 1918 he was sufficiently well-established to be named Designer of the Year by a panel of judges headed by the famous graphic designer Cappiello. The same day Carlu lost his right arm in a road accident. Although it meant a long period of retraining and readjustment, he refused to let this loss prevent him from continuing in his chosen career. There is an echo of the tragedy in the image of the hand that often recurs in his later work.
Based on what at the time was highly original imagery - the profile, the mask, and the obsessively repeated hand - his work as a poster designer developed in three areas in particular. First, political commitment: this was focused from as early as 1930 on the peace movement (Le D閟armement, 1932) and the struggle against National Socialism (Stop Hitler Now, 1940). He produced the latter in the United States, where he was resident from 1940 to 1953. Second, the expression, in poster form, of the dominant artistic movements of the day: Cubism (as in the label for Mouton Rothschild 1924) and Surrealism, under the influence of Andr?Breton and Yves Tanguy, as in the Reichold Chemicals poster. Finally, an impressive series of technical innovations: the introduction of photomontage (the poster of the film Atlantis by Pabst in 1932), the use of three-dimensional elements in poster design (La Grande Matson de Blanc, 1933), and the use of electric lightbulbs in poster composition (Luminograph, 1937).
Jean Carlu made an enormous contribution to commercial art. He was one of the first graphic designers to recognise the value of clean line and strong colour in fixing a brand image in the mind of the buying public; these same qualities give Carlu's posters their power as works of art.

1945  Philippe Jullian
In 1945, to commemorate the Allied victory, Baron Philippe de Rothschild had the idea of embellishing the Mouton Rothschild label with art-work: in this instance, a symbolic design intended to celebrate the return of peace. He commissioned this from a young unknown artist, Philippe Jullian (1921-1977). Having displayed early promise as a designer, he was to go on to become a successful dramatist. He submitted several drafts for the label: this one is based on the famous "V for Victory" that Churchill used throughout the war to rally the forces of freedom.

1946  JEAN HUGO
Victor Hugo's great-grandson, Jean Hugo (1894-1985) was fascinated from an early age by theatre design. He made his name in 1921 with his sets and costumes for Jean Cocteau's Les Mari閟 de la Tour Eiffel, and later designed productions for Leonide Massine, and for the Com閐ie Fran鏰ise. He also painted in oils and watercolours, generally acknowledged as a master of the miniature. Having been a familiar figure at Parisian parties between the wars, devising masks and fancy-dress costumes, he later moved to the South of France, where he wrote his memoirs, Avant d'oublier (Before I Forget).

For the 1946 label, Jean Hugo used the story of the Flood: the dove returning to the Ark, a symbol of the first year of peace.

1947  JEAN COCTEAU
Novelist, dramatist, film-maker, painter and designer, but primarily a poet, Jean Cocteau (1889-1963) belongs, in his love of formal perfection and the myths of Greece and Rome, to the great French classical tradition. He also ranks as a Surrealist for his constant need to challenge convention. As Diaghilev used to say: "Jean, 閠onne-moi!"(astonish me!). In his line-drawings he returns obsessively to the profile of the same youth with the intense gaze that he used for the Mouton label for 1947.

The original is lost: the drawing in the case is by Cocteau's lifelong friend Jean Marais, the actor and painter - and possessor of the famous profile - who agreed at Philippine de Rothschild's request to make a copy.

1948  MARIE LAURENCIN
Influenced at the beginning of her career by the stylisation of Cubism and by the work of Picasso's Black Period, Marie Laurencin (1885-1956) was involved with all the avant-garde movements of the period, and her picture "Apollinaire and his friends" of 1909 dates from her liaison with that poet. Later she moved towards a more decorative manner inspired by the "Nabis" group of painters that included Bonnard and Maurice Denis. Hard to confine to any school, her originality lies in her skill as a colourist of very subtle tones, her gentle na飗et?and love of graceful adolescent faces.

For the 1948 Mouton Rothschild label she has drawn a pair of young bacchantes, endowing them with a typically childlike gravity

1949  ANDRE DIGNIMONT
The Parisian painter Andr?Dignimont (1891-1965) frequently exhibited at the "Salon d'Automne" and was closely connected with the world of contemporary writing, largely through his friendship with Francis Carco.

A highly talented designer and watercolourist, he also illustrated editions of many well-known classics, from Perrault's Contes to Gone With The Wind. His painting also reveals a love of popular pastimes and amusements, cafes and public dances, brothels and bars, prostitutes and their clients. In more innocent vein he has drawn the inside of a country pub for his label for the 1949 Mouton Rothschild, one of the best vintages of the century.

1950  GEORGES ARNULF
Born in 1921 in Monaco, Georges Arnulf won the Grand Prix de Rome for engraving in 1950, and illustrated the Mouton label the same year. Arnulf's interest in pre-Columbian art took him to South America from 1957 to 1966, working in stained glass and fresco painting. Back in France, he taught drawing, his work becoming more florid and elaborate, combining human figures with plants, rocks and animals, all caught in vigorous movement.

The austerity of his design, evident for the 1950 Mouton Rothschild label, belongs to his early period: his skill as an engraver comes through in the clarity of line and the rigorous perspective in which he sets the symbol of the Ram.

1951  MARCEL VERTES
Born in Hungary, Marcel Vert鑣 (1896-1961) began his career as a poster designer in Vienna before settling in Paris in 1925. He established his reputation with a book of drawings, Dancings (1926), which shows him to have been a keen-eyed observer of the inter-war years, and brought him more work from the publishers of de-luxe editions. These included Ch閞i and La Vagabonde by Colette, Les Aventures du Roi Pausole by Pierre Lou?'s, L'Europe Galante by Paul Morand, and Le Cirque by Ramon Gomez de la Serna.

The innocent sensuality of his work is well expressed in the shepherd and shepherdess he provided for the label of Mouton Rothschild 1951.

1952  LEONOR FINI
L閛nor Fini (1918-), was born in Italy and was initially influenced by the Pre-Raphaelites and by Aubrey Beardsley. Later she joined the Surrealist movement, always returning to certain recurring themes: a mysterious kind of eroticism, androgenous figures, mystical landscapes. Her work took a new direction with her stage designs. She outraged Parisian society with her taste, her extravagance and her parties, many of them in fancy-dress.

Like a doodle from a child's exercise book, her young "She-Ram" for the 1952 Mouton Rothschild label demonstrates L閛nor Fini's capacity, by the sheer elegance and precision of her drawing, to lift everyday reality into the world of dreams.

1953  CENTENARY YEAR
On 11 May 1853, Baron Nathaniel de Rothschild (1812-1870), a member of the English branch of the family, signed the contract which made him proprietor of Ch鈚eau Brane-Mouton, together with 188 acres of vines in the parish of Pauillac for the sum of 1,125,000 francs in gold. He immediately renamed it Ch鈚eau Mouton Rothschild. To commemorate the centenary Baron Philippe dedicated the 1953 vintage to the memory of his great-grandfather. This label is not illustrated by a modern painter, showing instead a contemporary portrait of Baron Nathaniel.

1954  JEAN CARZOU
Jean Carzou (1907-), born of Armenian parents, studied architecture, only coming to prominence as a painter after 1945. He later won acclaim for his stage sets with his designs for Le Loup by Roland Petit in 1953 and La P閞ichole at the Th殁tre de Paris in 1970. In his work, there is a sharp contrast between a rigorous geometric perspective and the tangle of lines he uses to draw people and things. The result is highly personal and poetic, transcending objective reality by investing it with an element of fantasy.

The allegory of the Wheel of Fortune which he chose for the label of 1954 reminds us that however generous, Nature, even at Mouton Rothschild, is never predictable.

1955  GEORGES BRAQUE
The first artist of international stature to illustrate a Mouton Rothschild label, Georges Braque (1882-1963) was, with Picasso, one of the originators of Cubism, abandoning perspective to show the subject from several different angles. In 1913 the invention of collages led him to use brighter colours. His later work became more figurative: nudes, landscapes, still lives, painted in broad, sweeping curves and using powerful chromatic harmonies. Sculptures, stained glass and jewelry all added to his reputation.

His drawing for the 1955 Mouton Rothschild label, made to the exact dimensions of the final frame, celebrates a magnificent vintage with the simplicity of a great artist.

1956  PAVEL TCHELITCHEW
Tchelitchew (1898-1957) was born in Moscow, studied at the Drawing School in Kiev in 1918, and after travelling widely abroad, settled in Paris in 1923. Three years later, breaking with abstract art, he contributed to the Neo-Romantic Exhibition, and in 1928 designed the sets and costumes for Diaghilev's ballet Ode. He then became a Surrealist, and at the beginning of the Second World War moved to New York, where he met Tanguy, Ernst and Breton, producing work which, like Salvador Dali, recorded fantastic visions with great technical precision.

His design for the 1956 Mouton Rothschild label La Tache de Vin returns to the traditional theme of the Ram, expressing the exuberance of nature under the controlling hand of man.

1957  ANDRE MASSON
After a short Cubist period, Andr?Masson (1896-1987) was deeply influenced by the Surrealists, though in 1929 he claimed he was a Surrealist "dissident". The Spanish Civil War channelled the natural violence of his compositions into a tragic Expressionism. In America in the Forties, he inspired the early practitioners of Action Painting. Then he returned to Provence, designing sets and costumes for Hamlet and T阾e d'Or, both for theatres in Paris. In 1966, he was commissioned to paint the ceiling of the Th殁tre de L'Od閛n.

For the 1957 Mouton Rothschild label, Masson has created a hymn in praise of contented drunkenness, where the figure of the slumbering drinker is intertwined with branches of the vine.

1958  SALVADOR DALI
A master of Surrealism both in his life and in his painting, Salvador Dali (1904-1989) was not only a living legend but an artist of unquestioned technical excellence. Born in Catalonia, he discovered the "metaphysical painting" of De Chirico, who brought him into the Surrealist movement in 1928. He became one of its most notorious exponents, only to be expelled in 1931. Humorous or horrific, erotic or mystical, academic pastiche or wildest fantasy, Dali's work refuses to be categorised. Odd that Surrealism should have found in this self-proclaimed genius its best advocate.

Odd too, that the charming sheep on the 1958 Mouton Rothschild label has all the innocent charm of a drawing by a child.

1959  RICHARD LIPPOLD
The German-born American sculptor Richard Lippold (1915-) began his career in industrial design. It was in 1942 that he devised the form of expression that made him famous in the United States: linear sculpture, organising space in a mesh of brass, nickel or copper wire, widening from opposing poles and creating three-dimensional geometric figures. His work is represented in all the great American museums as well as in public buildings like the Lincoln Center and San Francisco Cathedral.

For the Mouton Rothschild label for 1959 he has managed to translate into his own abstract language the colour of the wine and the alignment of the vines.

1960  JACQUES VILLON
Jacques Villon (1875-1963) was born Gaston Duchamp, brother of the sculptor Duchamp-Villon and the painter Marcel Duchamp. By 1911 his studio at Puteaux in the suburbs of Paris was a power-house of the Cubist Movement, and in 1913 he was included in the "Armory Show" in New York, which brought the latest in modern art before the American public. Villon's painting at that time combined the architectural rigour of Cubism with an interest in the problems of light and colour, though he returned to more traditional forms.

An explorer as much as a painter, but always a superb colourist, Villon succeeds in the 1960 Mouton Rothschild label in capturing the movement of the birds in the static geometry of the vines.

1961  GEORGES MATHIEU
Hailed by Malraux: "At last the West has produced a calligrapher!", Georges Mathieu (1921-) moved to Paris in 1947. The self-proclaimed creator of "Lyrical Abstraction", he invented a wild, fantastic system of signs that he sees as the expression of his own inner primordial violence. "Painting", he wrote, "has to be an act" - a battle with the canvas in which Mathieu, with a strong streak of exhibitionism, creates works of swirling, tormented and violently-coloured movement, often in front of an audience. He has also experimented in poster design, furniture and jewelry.

The explosive dynamism of his work for the 1961 Mouton Rothschild label is in typical Mathieu style.

1962  MATTA
Roberto Matta Echaurren, known as Matta (1912-) was born in Chile, and worked with Le Corbusier as an architect. In 1935 he joined the Surrealists in Paris. He spent the war in the United States, where he was influenced by Tanguy and Duchamp, returning in 1948 to paint a huge fresco for the UNESCO building in Paris. Turning from mystical introspection to denounce violence and the worship of machines, he began to paint an alarming world of half-robots, half-puppets.

The tormented vine-root he drew for the 1962 Mouton Rothschild label still lets us imagine the promise of fruit to come. Witness the caption chosen by the painter: "Son tendre velout?s閐uit les plus rebelles" (Its velvet tenderness will melt the hardest heart).

1963  BERNARD DUFOUR
Bernard Dufour (1922-) studied agricultural engineering before becoming a painter in 1945. His early work tended towards abstract landscape, but by the late fifties he was painting more figurative self-portraits, male heads of tragic intensity and female nudes. These last add an erotic dimension to work where reality is always seen through the lens of memory or dream: blurred lines, mirror images, everyday objects in eerily unfamiliar surroundings.

This same sensuality pervades his Mouton Rothschild label for 1963: grapes and a recumbent human figure, with a line from Mallarm?s L'Apr鑣-midi d'un faune -"Ainsi, quand des raisins j'ai suc?la clart?.. " (Just so I sucked once too the lustre from the grapes).

1964  HENRY MOORE
The son of a Yorkshire miner, the sculptor Henry Moore (1898-1984) studied at the Royal College of Art, and from the early Thirties exhibited regularly with the Surrealists, acknowledging the influence of both Brancusi and pre-Columbian Art.
From these two sources he developed a new way of representing the human form that recalls the great primitive notions like kingship and fertility. He brings his massive figures to life by hollowing out gaping holes, excavating depths of emptiness in the solid mass.

His work now puts him in the first rank of contemporary sculptors. His design for the 1964 Mouton Rothschild label, three golden chalices cradled in cupped hands, evokes the solemn mood of some ancient ritual.

1965  DOROTHEA TANNING
The American artist Dorothea Tanning (1912-) discovered Surrealism at the great Museum of Modern Art show in New York in 1936. Soon afterwards she met Max Ernst. They were married in 1946, a famous couple, and both in the States and later in France their home was full of friends and admirers. Always strictly faithful to Surrealist theory, she brought to the movement her own strange fantasies - huge flowers, satanic, ragged little girls -, working in a variety of different disciplines: stage design, etching and engraving.

The saraband of little "She-Lambs" that she drew for the 1965 Mouton Rothschild label remains true to her inspiration, a world of gracefully drifting dreams.

1966  PIERRE ALECHINSKY
The painter, designer and poet Pierre Alechinsky (1927-) was born in Brussels. With his fellow-poet Christian Dotremont he founded the so-called "Cobra" (Cologne/Brussels/Amsterdam) Group, which set out to replace the existing confrontation between abstract and representational art with "Baroque Expressionism". At the same time Alechinsky forms part of a recognisable artistic tradition: not only that of Paul Klee, but of Surrealism itself, from which he took a sense of mystery and the spontaneity of automatic drawing. His canvases are painted with an organic exuberance, filled with a world of grotesque figures in a state of constant flux.

Powerful but full of humour, his allegory the "Ram-Drinker" for the 1966 Mouton Rothschild label seems almost to leap off the bottle.

1967  CESAR
C閟ar Baldaccini, known simply as C閟ar (1921-2000) was born in Marseille and moved to Paris in 1943. In 1960 he introduced his famous "Compressions": crushed cars, then other consumer durables given similar treatment. He defended his use of scrap metal - "Carrara marble was too expensive, there was old iron lying about all over the place" - and succeeded, like some latter-day alchemist, in transmuting it into works of art. In 1966 he turned to more malleable materials with moulded plastic and his "Expansions" in polyurethane, the definitive tribute to our modern age.

His composition for the 1967 Mouton Rothschild label also makes amusing use of present-day artefacts: paper clips, nuts and bolts.

1968  BONA
In 1950, the Italian artist Bona Tibertelli (1926-) married Andr?Pieyre de Mandiargues who brought her into contact with the intellectual avant-garde in Paris. Her talent then flowered in fantasy pieces: mandrake roots taking the form of giants, monstrous sea-shells. As a devout Surrealist she practised "decalcomania" or automatic painting. From 1958, when she moved to Mexico, her work evolved towards abstraction, using new materials like concrete and stucco. She found her greatest fulfilment in a genre devised by the Cubists: collage.

It is worth comparing her voluptuous "She-Ram" for the 1968 Mouton Rothschild label with L閛nor Fini's design for the 1952 vintage.

1969  JOAN MIRO
A Catalan by birth, Joan Mir?(1893-1984) moved to Paris in 1919, and was introduced by Andr?Masson to the Surrealists, Andr?Breton welcoming him as a kindred spirit. In 1924 he found his own style: a world of violent colour, shapes and symbols, vaguely alarming insects, but full of the light and innocence of childhood. All his work provokes the same basic question: do these worms turning in the womb indicate dark oedipal fantasies, or just joyful exuberance in the face of grey everyday reality?

Dominated by a vast, blood-red grape, his label for the Mouton Rothschild 1969 includes a discreet but witty obeisance to the family: the blue and yellow of the Rothschild racing colours.

1970  MARC CHAGALL
A painter, engraver and sculptor, Marc Chagall (1887-1985) was born in Russia of Orthodox Jewish stock. After an early working visit to Paris he made his home there in 1923, spending the war years in the United States. His painting is a synthesis of the Jewish and Russian cultural traditions, a world that seems to float in space, half-realistic, half-symbolic. We find all the great events of human life observed by an eye that has retained a child's innocence, love of vivid colour and even of farmyard animals.

Rather than the wine, it was the living fruit of the vine, speared by a thrush or fed by a mother to her child, that Chagall chose to bring us here for the 1970 Mouton Rothschild label.

1971  WASSILY KANDINSKY
Born in Russia, Wassily Kandinsky (1866-1944) took first German, then French citizenship. He played a crucial role in the genesis of abstract art. As a young painter his work looked very much like that of his Impressionist and Fauvist contemporaries, but he was wrestling with a question he put in its simplest form in 1908: "I knew for certain that a subject weakened a painting, but then a terming abyss opened beneath my feet: what was to replace the subject?" In 1910, in Munich, he painted what will always stand in the history of art as the first abstract watercolour.

The work to illustrate the label for Mouton Rothschild 1971, which he painted in 1939, belongs to his "architectural" period. The original now hangs in the Georges Pompidou Centre in Paris.

1972  SERGE POLIAKOFF
Born in Moscow, Serge Poliakoff (1900-1969) was forced to leave Russia by the Revolution of 1919, and spent time in Turkey and various European cities before he settled in Paris in 1923, where he met Kandinsky. He was also influenced by the colour theory of Robert and Sonia Delaunay. From 1945 he found his own personal style: highly organised, almost architectural planes of colour in the form of irregular polygons, their colours sometimes violently contrasted, sometimes closely related. Despite its austerity, his brushwork produces effects of surprising depth.

Balance, colour, richness: his work for the Mouton Rothschild 1972 label has all the qualities of a great wine.

1973  PABLO PICASSO
We have to approach art as immediate as that of Picasso in a way that is entirely direct, honest, spontaneous and innocent... What we absolutely must not do is put him on a pedestal like some horror in a cemetery and talk about him as "a great man": everything about him is alive, in constant movement, refusing to be confined in a lifeless statue. One of the grossest errors propagated about Picasso, and one we hear most often, is the idea that he is something to do with the Surrealists. In fact, in the majority of his paintings, the subject is almost always completely down to earth, never drawn from the dim world of dreams, never capable of being turned into a symbol, in other words not in any way Surrealist. Human limbs, human subjects in human surroundings; that is first and foremost what we find in Picasso (Michel Leiris, Document 2, 1930).

Nothing can be done without solitude. I have created solitude for myself no-one ever dreams exists. It's very difficult to be alone nowadays because we have wristwatches. Have you ever seen a saint with a wristwatch? I've looked everywhere and I haven't been able to find a single one, not even on saints who are meant to be the patron saints of clockmakers (Picasso to T閞iade, 1932).

Crus Bourgeois Exceptionnels

Crus Bourgeois Supérieurs