Château Mouton Rothschild 1945… 🍷

Arden Fine Wines’ bottle of 1945 Château Mouton Rothschild came from the cellar of Faringdon House, Oxfordshire, England.

Faringdon House is a Grade I-listed house in Faringdon, Oxfordshire, built 1770–85.

Faringdon was the country home of Gerald Hugh Tyrwhitt-Wilson, 14th Baron Berners, who inherited it in 1918.

Fictionalised as Lord Merlin in Nancy Mitford’s novel “The Pursuit of Love”, Berners was notorious for his eccentricity, dyeing pigeons in vibrant colours and entertaining Penelope Betjeman’s horse Moti to tea.

Other visitors to Faringdon included Gertrude Stein, Igor Stravinsky, Salvador Dalí, and H. G. Wells.

It is believed that the bottle was acquired by Lord Berners before 1950 or by his partner Robert Heber-Percy after 1951, possibly as a gift from a visitor to Faringdon House.

Lord Berners was an enthusiastic and generous host but, according to Mark Amory’s 1998 biography of him, he was not a great wine connoisseur – which might explain why this prestigious bottle was never consumed…