The world’s most expensive wine is set to hit our screens on January 1, and you could be one of the first to see it. The film won’t go into general release until the New Year, but Wine Search readers can watch it now at a discount via the exclusive link at the end of this article.
This 51-minute documentary explores how a former engineering student started making wine in an obscure corner of Bordeaux and ended up making the wine with the highest release price in history – in other words, the story of Liber Pater.
Directed by award-winning Dutch filmmaker Klaas de Jong, the documentary centers on Loïc Pasquet, founder and winemaker of Liber Pater, and also features renowned wine brands such as Jane Anson and Jacky Rigaux.
The film recounts Pasquet’s efforts to get his wines past Bordeaux and France’s strict wine rules, in which the winemaker from Landras was ridiculed, reviled, fined and ultimately banned. Furious wine authorities dragged to court. No wonder he didn’t think very well of them. He also believed that Bordeaux sold its soul to changing tastes, and to the tastes of one man in particular – Robert Parker.
“The troubled winery owners in the late ’80s saw this guy saying he was going to promote wine in America, so they made the wine he wanted. But again, the problem wasn’t Parker; he had the right to say he liked this or that, ” Pasquet told Wine-Searcher in a 2019 interview.
“Then Merlot came on the market in large quantities, the only grape that over-ripened and provided sweetness and alcohol, with wood providing vanilla and sweetness. The problem was not the critics, but the producers, who agreed that the taste of fine wines was lost. To create a complete wine.” Create a full-bodied wine based on the characteristics of the grape variety. In some vineyards, they pulled out century-old vines to plant Merlot. Before Parker, the cooperage was dying. Remember, there was a trend for 200% barreled for a while, it was hysterical. The dramatic thing is that Bordeaux has the terroir and the wine culture to produce great wines, but it is also a commercial place and has the ability to produce wines with specific flavors that are far removed from the terroir.
Due to the size of his acreage (30,000 vines per hectare instead of the allowed 5-10,000), the use of ungrafted vines and the use of grape varieties that do not comply with current Bordeaux rules (although he points out that these are traditional Bordeaux species) and be punished. ), Pasquet’s revenge was novel: he made a wine, labeled it “Vin de France”, France’s most basic appellation, and put it on the market for $33,000 a bottle, surpassing the nobility in one fell swoop. Grand Cru, the latter’s release prices rarely exceed $1,000. However, he remained dissatisfied with the authorities.
“They are accomplices of the mafia, of mediocrity. They don’t understand the expression of a place. The elders understood that the grape should match the place where it comes from. Now it’s hybrid varieties. Now in Bordeaux it’s soup, it’s a Based on the quality of the grape varieties, we seek a certain proportion of Merlot and Cabernet Sauvignon, consistent with the taste of the grapes, but this is not a high-quality wine. I make high-quality wine, and the same is true for Burgundy. The terroir determines the quality of the grapes. Three A terroir Cabernet Sauvignon can have three flavors and you won’t recognize them. That’s what I’m against.”
