By V. Sivaji

Being the managing director of the premium champagne brand, Champagne Barons De Rothschild, Frederic Mairesse travels the globe on a regular basis.

Frederic normally travels all over the world and attend fine dinner gathering in top notch hotels and resorts from one corner of the globe to another.

Frederic Mairesse

He started his job as managing director in 2009 and is proud to be associated with the premium champagne brand.

He was recently at the Ritz-Carlton Langkawi for the “An evening with Champagne Barons De Rothschild” where some 35 champagne aficionados gathered.

Achieving this feat does not come easy as for this Frenchman as he was previously with several other wine and champagne companies to achieve outstanding success.

“The brand has a legacy since 1743 and with the coming together of the family members and collaboration in 2003.

“For the first time since the beginning of the dynasty in 1743, the Rothschild merged together on the same project, meaning the Rothschild siblings Eric (Lafite) / Philippine (Mouton) / Benjamin and his wife Ariane (Clarke and Edmond de Rothschild group) de Rothschild came out with a champagne.

“By the end of 2009 we started to release the first bottles on few markets and today we are on more than 80 markets all around the world,” in an interview with Penang Hyperlocal.com.

His work now mainly involves the planning of the marketing and sales strategy for the Rothschild family, annual business plan and also long term plans.

“It also includes to secure and source the best first grapes and Grand crus (wine classification) to elaborate our champagne and participate to the blends and tasting with the enologist team.

Nose for fine champagne

“I also have to manage the production, marketing, sales and finance. The main part of my job is represent and sale our champagne all over the world.

“I also do between five to six world tours every year during which spend more than 160 / 180 days outside of France,” says Frederic.

He adds that their market share breakdown is 20% to local consumption in France and 80% for export.

“Asia is among the biggest markets with Japan, China, Spore, Hong Kong, Vietnam and Malaysia. The rest is for Europe and North America.

“Malaysia a very nice and kind country, I love to discover your amazing paradise place in Langkawi but I am so curious and surprise to see how Kuala Lumpur is big and modern,” adds Frederic.

Frederic has visited Langkawi and KL on several occasions and is loking forward to be back in 2020.

Since he loves coming to Asia, he regards Vietnam, Lombok, and Hong Kong on the top of his list but Langkawi is also fast getting his attention too.

Despite his travels, Frederic finds time to pursue his love for the sea, to take on kite surf, wind surf, diving and water ski.

“Overall, I love to meet and share with people, I love to share culture and in Malaysia people are so easy I am very glad and lucky to share my experince and knowledge with them.”