Why a $33,000 Wine Made From Rare Grapes Is Polarizing the Wine World
In a steady winter drizzle 30 minutes outside Bordeaux, the tiny hamlet of Pichou appears abandoned save for a rugged-looking fellow in overalls and wellies, with the long, flowing hair of a romance-novel cover model, plowing a field of twigs behind a strapping white horse. Vineyards generally don’t look like much in late winter, but the barrenness here is extreme. Where are the trellises, the wires, the thick vine stumps? Can this muddy field really belong to the controversial vintner who makes the world’s most expensive wine?
Loïc Pasquet pulls up in a dirt-splattered gray utility van and jumps out to greet us. He points to the sodden ground covered with sticks, stones, grass, and clumps of weeds and tells us about the grape varieties grown here and about how the rows are planted in such a way that they can be plowed in three different directions, like a tic-tac-toe board. For someone who socializes with royalty and makes a wine that sells for roughly $33,000 a bottle, the 48-year-old Pasquet is unassuming in person. His hiking boots, Levi’s, fisherman’s sweater, and rain-dotted glasses make him appear more like a working farmer than an innovative winemaker. Or, for that matter, the self-promotional publicity hound that some in the industry consider him to be.
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We first met Pasquet at the Golden Vines Awards, dubbed the Oscars of Fine Wine, in Paris in October 2023. His Liber Pater 2007 had been poured for the assembled guests in the ornate gallery of Paris’s Opéra Garnier to accompany the cuisine of star chefs Alain Ducasse and Akrame Benallal. The wine was stunning, its bold fruit flavors, with touches of smoke and chocolate, making it seem far younger than its 16 years. It soon became the wine that everyone at the awards was talking about, either praising it for its taste or chattering about the cost (sometimes both), with guests openly debating the sky-high price tag.
From that point, we were determined to learn more about Liber Pater and Pasquet’s work. Which is how we ended up standing in the rain at the edge of the 1.7-acre Denarius vineyard. With a price tag of about $600, Denarius is Liber Pater’s less-expensive label, commonly called a second wine, though Pasquet detests the term. “It’s not a second wine,” he insists. “It’s two different plots.” While both offerings are 100 percent ungrafted, organic, and made with native grape varieties, he says that, in the Denarius vineyard, “we have more clay, so the wine is very soft, while Liber Pater is very elegant, more for the gods.”
As it turned out, the wine at Golden Vines—a 2007 vintage priced about $4,500—was hardly cheap but only a fraction of the figure that recent Liber Pater vintages command. The sevenfold price increase, to $33,000, is due to the fact that the composition of vintages made prior to 2015 included only 10 percent ungrafted vines and older grape varieties. The vastly more expensive vintages produced since are composed of “100 percent native varieties and 100 percent ungrafted Franc de Pied,” Pasquet says.
Still, most small-quantity wines cost between $150 and $600 per bottle. Why is his so much more? In response, Pasquet tosses out a line we would come to hear many times throughout our time together: “What is the price you are ready to pay to have dinner with Napoleon?”
Of course, the early-19th-century French emperor remains resolutely dead. But Pasquet has managed to resurrect lost or forgotten grape varieties—those that grew in Bordeaux prior to the Bordeaux Wine Official Classification of 1855, when Napoleon III requested a classification system for the region’s top wines—to be displayed at that year’s Paris Exposition. These historic varieties are the grapes that thrived before the phylloxera louse ravaged European vineyards in the late 19th century, nearly destroying the global wine industry. Pasquet found some growing on his land when he bought it, and he has re-propagated them in his decidedly low-tech nursery. As perhaps the only person now working with these throwbacks, he feels he’s offering oenophiles time travel in a glass.
It’s a high-risk proposition. The majority of grapevines around the world, including in Europe, are grafted onto American rootstock, which is resistant to phylloxera. But Pasquet has planted both of his vineyards with Franc de Pied, or ungrafted vines. “Nobody else on the Earth makes this type of wine, because we use native varieties; it’s totally Franc de Pied, and we produce only 500 bottles,” he says. And he doesn’t produce Liber Pater every year, adding to its rarity. “This is very exclusive, and all the wine lovers in the world want to taste it because it offers the possibility to taste a wine like wine was before phylloxera.”
Pasquet’s unusual growing practices, and his pitch about “dinner with Napoleon,” raise a lot of hackles. In the fall of 2015, vandals with pruning shears cut down 10 percent of the vines on one of his plots. He has also been sued by France’s National Institute of Appellations of Origin (INAO) for his unconventional vineyard methods; the powerful organization decried his use of ungrafted vines in Bordeaux due to the risk of phylloxera contamination.
None of the opposition seems to bother Pasquet. “I won the case on appeal, and it set a legal precedent, paving the way for various ungrafted-vine grapes to be planted and recognized in Bordeaux,” he says, pointing out that the INAO was unable to find any text within its regulations prohibiting Franc de Pied. He seems to enjoy trolling his detractors, having been quoted in Le Monde crowing that the lawsuit “saved me €150,000 in advertising, and the price of my bottle continued to rise.” So it’s no surprise when he exclaims, “I think it’s good when people find it controversial. Napoleon was very controversial.”
Pasquet’s use of ungrafted vines is a major part of the Liber Pater conversation. He considers grafted rootstock an unacceptable conduit that dilutes the taste and overall quality of wine. His product, he maintains, is exceptional “because we have no filter… between the soil and the vine. When you have ungrafted Franc de Pied, the connection between the soil and the vine is total, and the grape is totally different.” He’s not the only one to think so. Jérémy Cukierman, master of wine, supports this analysis, saying, “From my experience, ungrafted vines are able to produce wines with an extra soul, a unique elegance, and an ethereal character.” As for the threat posed by phylloxera, Pasquet says he uses gravel and sand soil that are resistant to the pest.
What is the price you are ready to pay to have dinner with Napoleon?
The main grape variety used in both Liber Pater and Denarius is Petite Vuidure, an old name for Cabernet Sauvignon. It’s blended with the nearly extinct varieties Mancin, Castets, Saint-Macaire, Pardotte, Gros Cabernet, and Cabernet Goudable, as well as Tarnay Coulant. Pasquet asserts that his Petite Vidure from ungrafted pre-phylloxera vines is completely different from the modern Cabernet Sauvignon currently cultivated in Bordeaux. He also grows small amounts of Malbec, Carménère, and Petit Verdot, which are among the six grapes allowed in order for the wine to be labeled Bordeaux but which are far overshadowed by Merlot and Cabernet Franc. Cukierman applauds this cultivation of heritage varieties in the Bordeaux zone, too. “Preserving Bordeaux heritage through old indigenous varieties is absolutely key nowadays,” he says, “especially with the climatic challenges we are facing.”
Of course, Pasquet considers his wines not just different from others produced in the region but better. He refers to other wines made in Bordeaux as “soup,” whether it’s a by-the-glass bargain bottle or a highly prized First Growth. “Today, everybody wants to make wine like soup, to have a good score,” he says. “Me, I want to make wine to have the taste and the message of the terroir.”
He is uninterested in sending his wine to critics to be rated, claiming that there is an “easy recipe” to crafting 100-point wines, one that doesn’t fit his “low-intervention” winemaking. “To have the message of the terroir, it’s necessary to replant native varieties on good soil, to have high density, to work with mules,” he explains. “So, it’s big work.”
Pasquet does his big work on a small estate in Graves, a subregion of Bordeaux. Even so, Liber Pater is not classified as a prestigious Bordeaux Superieur but rather, thanks to its unconventional mix of varieties, is labeled Vin de France, the lowest category in the French-appellation hierarchy, used for entry-level blends with no regional identification. Yet Pasquet claims to make the only wine that can authentically be called Bordeaux.
“I would like to refind the taste of Bordeaux before phylloxera, because it’s totally unique,” he says. “If you want to taste wine like 1855, there is only one: It’s Liber Pater.”
We know numerous winemakers who would vigorously object to Pasquet’s claim to make the only Bordeaux worthy of the name. But it’s true that Liber Pater is exceedingly rare. Frost ruined Pasquet’s entire crop in 2021, and his 2022 vintage was more limited than usual because of smoke taint from forest fires in the region. Last year was better, yielding enough juice to fill one 250-liter and two 400-liter vessels. In a good year, Pasquet makes around 500 bottles of Liber Pater and between 1,500 and 3,000 bottles of Denarius, all of which he sells directly to private clients. He also owns a vineyard on the Greek island of Naxos, where he makes a white blend called Tetradrachm that he sells for about $600. Pasquet revels in the idea of micro-production, comparing his “very low yield” style of agriculture to the art of cultivating bonsai trees.
In his distinctive farming method, Pasquet utilizes an arcane trellising system called arcure that forgoes wires; he and his team make a loop in the vines when they’re young and wrap them around small posts. He doesn’t do any leaf thinning, so the grapes are always protected from the hot sun. “I don’t want to make marmalade,” he jokes, referencing the prevailing jammy style of 100-point wine.
Pasquet’s wines have an alcohol level of just 12 percent—moderate for reds from the region. The Denarius plot is home to a hand-tended vine nursery that harbors seven rows of twig-like vine shoots about eight inches tall, planted through a layer of black plastic. In a length of about 50 yards, he has 15,000 future grapevines that, by the time you’re reading this, should have sprouted roots and been planted. The Liber Pater vineyard team consists of seven people, one horse, one donkey, one mule, and 30 sheep that graze on the cover crop sprouting between the tightly spaced vine rows.
Today, everybody wants to make wine like soup, to have a good score.
Located just nine miles from Château d’Yquem, Pasquet’s garage winery is a far cry from that grand château and vineyard, which, in line with the Bordeaux Wine Official Classification of 1855, produces only Superior First Growth Sauternes. But while Pasquet’s vineyard is modest, his showmanship is over the top. During our visit, he leaves us on the street for a few minutes while he goes through his house to open the winery door. As the minutes tick by, we assume he has gotten side-tracked, but it turns out he has used the time to light candles beside a small statue of Saint Vincent, patron saint of vintners, and cue up choral music reminiscent of vespers in an Italian monastery; a few sandstone-egg-style fermenters, neutral vessels that impart no flavor to the wine, sit atop a pea-gravel floor.
A narrow staircase to the winery’s loftlike upper floor resembles a portal to another world. In addition to original frieze-style metal-on-paper sculptures—on which the embossed metallic labels are based—Pasquet owns an impressive collection of antiques, including hand-illustrated viticulture guides from 1857 commissioned by Napoleon III, 300-year-old leather books explaining vineyard techniques, and Ancient Greek and Middle Eastern wine implements. Among the treasures is a 27-liter bottle of Liber Pater signed by Prince Albert of Monaco, a friend of Pasquet’s and a supporter of an organization to which Pasquet belongs that brings together winemakers working with ungrafted rootstock.
Over dinner, we discuss how he got into wine, including his childhood in Poitiers, during which he began to collect bottles at the improbable age of 11; his engineering studies at the University of Dijon (now the University of Burgundy); and a postgraduation career switch that led to a five-year search for the perfect vineyards. He says he taught himself many of the ins and outs of winemaking by reading books on the subject and consulting with established winemakers. Asked about partners or investors, he tells us he has none. “Twenty years ago, you could buy a vineyard for €1,” he says. “I am alone.” Meanwhile, two vintages of his prize wine are poured: Liber Pater 2018 has aromas of flint, charcuterie, and a brooding note of dark berries, while Liber Pater 2007 offers a bouquet of plum and cedar block, is smooth on the palate, and tastes deceptively young. Poured side by side, these are evidently well-made wines that will age gracefully for years.
Through a series of tastings in London hosted by a master sommelier and attended by masters of wine, Pasquet has become well-connected to the industry elite. In The World of Fine Wine in August 2023, British master of wine Simon Field gave Liber Pater 2015 a score of 90 points out of 100, adding a tasting note that leaned into its potential attributes more than its actual flavor: “One can only be sure that this highly prized work is but a mere sketch of what is to come.” He also compared Liber Pater’s value to that of sketches by Da Vinci and Dürer before concluding, “Whether, however, this wine is worth its asking price is another matter altogether.”
Not everyone who tastes Liber Pater is a fan. Wine journalist and critic Neal Martin penned an article in July 2023 for online wine magazine and ratings platform Vinous alleging that Pasquet is “prone to disinforming and gaslighting” and writing that if he were to taste the 2015 blind, he would “guess it to be a decent €30 to €40 Bordeaux” (no more than 45 bucks) that he would “happily drink over a decade,” which he acknowledged “may well be interpreted as damning it with faint praise.” In a terse response, Pasquet tells Robb Report that Martin “never came to the vineyard to understand what we do.”
Other wine experts are more impressed, both with the wine and the vision of its producer. Jeannie Cho Lee, Asia’s first master of wine and an award-winning author of three books, says, “Loïc Pasquet is doing important work to help preserve diversity and resurrect ancient, nearly extinct varieties, presenting wine lovers the opportunity to understand wines that are rare and historical.” As for Liber Pater itself, she praises it as “unusual both in flavor and palate profile.”
While a $33,000 wristwatch can be worn for generations, and a bottle of Liber Pater won’t last longer than a (truly spectacular) holiday dinner, it is this unique opportunity to taste Bordeaux’s past that might explain its price. Pasquet is not exaggerating when he says that Liber Pater is one of a kind: The wine is made by hand from start to finish using ungrafted heritage vines, and precious little of it is produced. Although it can’t actually enable you to dine with Napoleon, Liber Pater does offer the chance to taste what he tasted. As Pasquet says, “All these varieties have disappeared except for this glass.” For true wine lovers, that alone may be enough.
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