This week, an interesting news was published on Château Haut Brion’s Facebook fan page: it says that the oldest mention of Haut Brio n is a notarial instrument dated 21 January 1521, “what might be the oldest luxury brand in the world” as the chateau mentionned at the end of this post. As consultant for some of the most prestigious wine brands in the world since 2004, I am somewhat skeptical when I read that conclusion.
Why am I skeptical? Because first of all the notion of luxury brand is not easy to define. You may just read this relevant analysis published in Harvard Business Review during this week to figure out that this is not so simple. But I am also skeptical when I consider some other names in the world of fine wines that have a much longer history. What about Antinori, a member of PFV (with Champagne Pol Roger, Famille Perrin, Hugel, Chateau Mouton Rothschild, Joseph Drouhin, Egon Müller Scharzhof, Symington Family, Tenuta San Guido, Torres and Vega-Sicilia) whose history dates back to 1385, when Giovanni di Piero Antinori joined the Winemakers’ Guild in Italy. In Germany, Schloss Johannisberg is a castle and a vineyard in the village of Johannisberg in the Rheingau wine region that makes wine for over 900 years. Among the wine brands that are renowned around the world for the quality of their production, we finally discovered that there are some brands that have a longer history than Haut Brion in fact.
If Haut Brion was only referring to luxury brands in the world of jewelry, porcelain or fashion, then it is true that 1521 could make it the oldest brand (we should check in Japan where many very old brands including Kaguraya which is manufacturing bags and dates back to the 1500s). Indeed, Royal Delft (Netherlands) was founded in 1653, Jean Richard watches (Switzerland) in 1681, Meissen porcelain in 1710, textiles Piacenza (Italy) in 1733. Blancpain (watches) was created in 1735 and Vacheron Constantin in 1755. Aquascutum was founded in 1851, Louis Vuitton was founded in 1854, Burberry in 1856. And Hermes, you may ask? It was not until 1837 that this magnificent luxury brand was born. In any case, congratulations to Clarence Dillon and Chateau Haut Brion for this brilliant initiative that you can read here and that clearly anchors the world of fine wines in the world of luxury brands.
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