Mentzendorff were delighted to welcome 200 guests to their celebratory dinner last night at TATE Britain, marking the 150th Anniversary of the company’s association with Champagne Bollinger. The venue was chosen for its location opposite the Mentzendorff offices, which are situated on the South bank of the Thames and pre-dinner tasting included examples of extremely rare wines from each of their agencies such as Bollinger RD 1976 and Taylor’s 1948 Vintage Port.
The brilliant Tate team, headed up by Hamish Anderson delivered an innovative British menu, accompanied by fine wines from the Mentzendorff portfolio including Bollinger La Grande Année 1999, Chanson Père et Fils Chablis Grand Cru Les Clos 2006, Tapanappa The Tiers Chardonnay 2006, M. Chapoutier Hermitage Monier de la Sizeranne 2000, Roda I 2000, Taylor’s 1977 Vintage Port, Bodegas Hidalgo Oloroso Añada 1986, Klein Constantia Vin de Constance 2002 and Henriques & Henriques Boal 1957. The dinner came to a close with a glass of Delamain Réserve de la Famille, Grande Champagne Cognac.
Brief speeches were given by Andrew Hawes (Managing Director of Mentzendorff), Arnould d’Hautefeuille (Président Directeur Général of Société Jacques Bollinger) and Alun Griffiths MW (Wine Director of Berry Bros & Rudd).
Andrew Hawes commented “Much has changed since the young Prussian Ludwig Mentzendorff, having established a merchant business in the City of London in 1850, exchanged letters in January 1858 with Jacques Bollinger in their mutually native German language and began an agency agreement that runs unbroken to this day. Today our business and our agency portfolio continues to evolve, something that has arguably been one of our greatest strengths, and indeed many of our most successful agencies have joined us during the last decade, all being carefully selected family businesses that share our absolute commitment to quality. Therefore all of these positive developments are taking place within the parameters of a business that we would like to think would still be very recognisable to Ludwig Mentzendorff and the early partners to whom we owe so much.”
AN INTRODUCTION TO MENTZENDORFF’S HISTORY
Throughout a period that now spans three centuries Mentzendorff has evolved to meet the varying challenges of the day. Having been the founder’s own business Ludwig firstly incorporated his son Stanley into a partnership, that was then extended to include other family relations, and in the case of Harry “Noggs” Newman a close friend. This approach proved hugely successful and the business continued to thrive after the death of Ludwig in 1901. Indeed the first half of the 20th century was spectacularly successful for both Mentzendorff and Bollinger despite the global recession of the 1930’s and two World Wars, which placed the Champagne region quite literally in the front line.
However, the post-war period was to prove more difficult, the long-serving Arthur “Toby” Folks (a nephew of L.Mentzendorff) retired in 1946 after 49 years with the business, and two distinguished ex-Army Officers, Brigadier Brummel (known as “The BB”) and Lt. Colonel Osbert Vesey became the senior partners who had the task of steering the business through a period of acute shortages of Champagne which greatly affected Bollinger’s position in the U.K, where by this time it enjoyed a very significant market share.
This first period of Mentzendorff’s history as a wholly independent business, which had lasted over a century, came to an end in 1962 when its became a Ltd Co in which Champagne Bollinger purchased 100% of the shares. A young Christian Bizot became Bollinger’s representative Director on the Board and he continued to exert a huge influence on the business and on the development of Bollinger in the UK market for almost thirty years, through his close relationships with the first three Managing Directors of Mentzendorff & Co Ltd: Leslie Seyd (1962-1972), Anthony Leschallas (1972-1990) and Antony Mallaby (1990-2000), before his eventual retirement in 1998. The portfolio was also carefully expanded during this period with Delamain Cognac joining in 1964.
Christian was also very much part of the creation of modern Mentzendorff, which began in 1990 when Taylor Fladgate Yeatman purchased a 20% share in the business and Taylor’s Port joined the portfolio, adding for the first time a brand of truly comparable global standing to Bollinger and also adding Alastair Robertson to the Board as a shareholder. Both new arrivals were significant, with the arrival of Taylor’s opening up new areas of the trade to Mentzendorff, including the emerging multiple grocers. Important changes were also initiated in the internal structure of the business and a further broadening of the agency portfolio to include many of the great family owned producers that are still with us to this to day, one of the first arrivals being M.Chapoutier in 1993.
The Managing Directors of Mentzendorff have continued to be drawn from families with a wine trade tradition and above all our relationship with Champagne Bollinger and the family’s holding company the Société Jacques Bollinger (parent company of Mentzendorff) which is headed by Arnould d’Hautefeuille (great-nephew of Madame Lily Bollinger) remains critical and fundamentally unchanged in the sense that it has always been a strategic partnership in the true sense of the term, long before such phrases became part of the modern business language.
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