A Journalist Is Taking Over One of Bordeaux’s Great Wine Empires

In Abidjan, Ivory Coast, Saskia de Rothschild spent a month interviewing inmates at the notorious La Maca prison for an article in the French magazine Revue XXI. As an investigative journalist, she filmed for a documentary the first female U.S. Marines sent to Afghanistan’s front lines; for the New York Times, she embedded with sheep farmers fighting the mining industry in Greenland. But the challenge in front of her now may be her toughest yet.

In April the 31-year-old became the youngest person to currently lead a first-growth Bordeaux estate, Château Lafite Rothschild. She’s also the first female chairwoman of Domaines Barons de Rothschild (Lafite), her extended family’s global wine empire, which includes seven other wineries on three continents. The announcement coincides with the 150th anniversary of Rothschild ownership of the château. (The first vines were planted in the 1670s; Thomas Jefferson visited and became a devoted fan.)