The Times - UK (2020-12-02)

the times | Wednesday December 2 2020 2GM 35

Wo r l d

Château Mouton Rothschild, the

illustrious Bordeaux vineyard, has

chosen a contemporary Chinese artist

to design the label for its 2018 vintage.

The choice of Xu Bing, the third

artist from China to create a label for

the vineyard in 24 years, is widely

understood to underline the

importance of the Chinese

market to French wine, particu-

larly its most celebrated vine-

yards.

At first glance the work by Xu,

65, looks like Chinese lettering,

but on closer inspection it spells

out the words Mouton Rothschild

in the Latin alphabet.

Xu told Le Figaro that he had

wanted to create a label under-

stood by all connoisseurs. “They

are not Chinese characters, but

Latin letters that make two false

pictograms saying Mouton Roths-

Son is rescued

after 28 years

locked in horror

flat by mother

Baby among

five killed as

car hits crowd

Germany

David Crossland Berlin

A 51-year-old German man killed five

people including a nine-month-old

baby by driving his SUV at high speed

through a pedestrian zone in the

western German city of Trier.

He injured 15 people, three of whom

have life-threatening injuries while five

were seriously hurt. The baby’s mother

was among those injured. The other

victims who died were a 25-year-old

woman, a 52-year old woman, a

45-year-old man and a 73-year-old

woman, all from Trier.

Peter Fritzen, the city’s chief prosecu-

tor, said that the driver, a local man, was

under the influence of alcohol and a

preliminary assessment suggested that

he had psychiatric problems. He said:

“We have no indications that he had

any kind of terrorist motive or that a

political or religious motive may have

played a role.”

The man, who resisted arrest, faces

charges of murder and causing griev-

ous injuries. A breathalyser test showed

he was over the legal limit.

“He used the car as a weapon,” said

Mr Fritzen. “He was briefly examined

by a doctor and will undergo a psychiat-

ric evaluation.”

The suspect, who has not been

named and is of no fixed abode, has no

previous convictions.

Witnesses said the vehicle seemed to

be travelling at 100km an hour and

reported seeing victims flying through

the air as it careened through the main

pedestrian zone shortly before 2pm.

Hundreds of people were out shop-

ping in the picturesque town.

Witnesses reported seeing people

running for cover and screaming in

panic as the car drove for about a kilo-

metre down the pedestrian zone to-

wards the city gate, Porta Nigra, ram-

ming market stalls and overturning

fruit and vegetable crates.

“One can see from the zigzag lines

that this was a targeted attempt to find

people to cause them harm,” said the

interior minister of the state of Rhine-

land-Palatinate, Roger Lewentz.

“Our thoughts are with the relatives

of the victims, with the numerous

injured and with everyone who is on

duty to care for the victims,” Steffen

Seibert, a spokesman for Angela

Merkel, the German chancellor, said.

Claret with character aimed at Chinese

child. Everyone will be able to read this

label.”

Julien de Beaumarchais de Roth-

schild, the joint owner of the vine-

yard, said: “When I discovered Xu

Bing, I was captivated by him as an

inventor of signs endowed with

incredible poetic power.”

The château has asked artists to

design its labels since 1945. In

1969 the task fell to Joan Miró,

in 1973 to Pablo Picasso, in 1975

to Andy Warhol, in 1990 to

Francis Bacon, in 2006 to

Lucian Freud and in 2014 to

David Hockney.

The 2004 label was designed

by the Prince of Wales, who

painted pine trees against a blue

sky for a vintage commemorat-

ing the centenary of the entente

cordiale between Britain and

France. In 2008 the label was

created by the Chinese painter Xu Lei.

The 1996 label was produced by Gu

Gan, the Chinese calligrapher and

painter. The artists are always paid for

their work — with cases of wine.

Xu said that it was an “honour and an

homage” to have been chosen for the

2018 label. The vintage was sold to mer-

chants for €408 before it had even been

bottled. They hope to make a hand-

some profit: a 2000 Mouton Rothschild

was on sale for €3,045 this week.

China has become by far the biggest

market for French wine, importing

€573 million worth of bottles last year,

compared with €294 million for the US

and €260 million for Britain.

Such is the cachet of big name claret

in China that several châteaux have

been bought up. There is concern, how-

ever, about the vogue for renaming the

estates with “lucky” monikers: the 300-

year-old Château Larteau has become

Château Lapin Impérial (Imperial Rab-

bit). The sign outside features a cuddly-

looking rabbit that has alarmed purists.

France

Adam Sage Paris

Hunters to be questioned

over brown bear deaths

year in the Pyrenees among a popula-

tion of about 50. The incidents came ten

days after police in Catalonia said they

had arrested an environmental official

over the death of another bear, a six-

year-old male called Cachou, in April in

the Val d’Aran area in the Pyrenees.

Local officials blamed Cachou for the

deaths of five horses last year. Conser-

vation groups believe that the bear was

poisoned and the cause of death

covered up.

Activists say the Pyrenees popula-

tion is vulnerable to disease because

many are inbred. They say Cachou was

important to the species because he

had a different genetic make-up.

In the 1980s the bears were rarely

seen in Spain after they were deemed to

be pests and hunted. They became criti-

cally endangered before they were re-

introduced and efforts were made to

protect them.

Officers are investigating the killing of

two brown bears on the same day. A

hunter who shot dead a female brown

bear in the Bardají valley in Aragon, in

the Pyrenees, on Sunday claimed to

have acted in self-defence. The bear,

named Sarousse and born in Slovenia,

was 21 and had been released in France

in 2006. The regional nature protection

service is investigating.

The other female bear was shot in the

northern province of Palencia in the

Castile and León region. The Brown

Bear Foundation said the hunter

claimed that he mistook the animal for

a wild boar. Teresa Ribera, the environ-

ment minister, said efforts were under

way to clarify events.

The area is thought to be home to 350

bears. Three bears have been killed this

Spain

Isambard Wilkinson Madrid

A Swedish woman has been arrested on

suspicion of having kept her 41-year-

old son locked in her Stockholm apart-

ment for 28 years, prosecutors said.

A relative found the man emaciated,

with infected leg wounds and having

lost most of his teeth, Swedish news-

papers reported. He was discovered on

Sunday and taken to hospital, where he

had surgery on Monday.

Doctors contacted the police and the

70-year-old mother was detained. She

has denied charges of false imprison-

ment and causing grievous bodily

harm, Emma Olsson, a prosecutor, said.

Ms Olsson added: “He is now in

hospital. I know that he needed sur-

gery.” Neither the son nor the mother

has been named. Swedish media re-

ported that the relative who found the

man had tried repeatedly to visit him.

The mother always prevented her

from entering the flat.

She made another attempt on Sun-

day evening because she had heard that

the mother was away receiving treat-

ment in hospital. This time she suc-

ceeded in entering. The woman, who

has not been named, told Aftonbladet,

an evening newspaper in Stockholm:

“Nothing had been washed and cleaned

for many, many years, I did not want to

touch anything.”

She told Expressen, another evening

newspaper: “It was like walking into a

horror film. There was rubbish every-

where. It stank of rubbish and urine. It

was dark and quiet. Then I heard some-

thing in the kitchen.

“There in the darkness was a man

sitting on a rug on the floor. I could re-

cognise him from the street light.

“When I saw him, he stood up slowly

and whispered my name. After all the

years he recognised me immediately.

“He spoke fast and said things that

made no sense. He had no teeth and

that made him difficult to understand.

He was very thin. Then I saw his leg and

I knew that he needed immediate help.”

Media reports said that the mother

had taken her son out of school when

he was 12 after a traumatic event.

She had been shocked so badly that

she did not want to let him out of the

flat any more. It was not clear what that

event was and why the mother had

been allowed to keep the boy away

from school.

“At the time I tried to alert the

authorities,” the relative said. “But the

others in the family said one shouldn’t

interfere. In the end I gave up.”

The relative said that she had found

the son next to two almanacs on the

wall from 1995 and 1996.

Police were alerted to the case by

hospital staff treating the man. They

cordoned off the apartment in the dis-

trict of Haninge, southern Stockholm,

for investigation.

“I am shocked and desperate,” the

relative said. “But I’m also relieved. I

have been waiting for this day for 20

years because I know that she totally

controlled his life. I am grateful that he

has got help and will survive.”

Natural look Full ceremonial dress for a member of the Marquesans, the original

inhabitants of the isolated Marquesas Islands 900 miles from Tahiti in the Pacific

Sweden

David Crossland

Police are searching the apartment

Xu Bing’s label for Château

Mouton Rothschild 2018

JIMMY NELSON/SWNS