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.
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
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.
From Pasquet’s extensive collection of antiquities, a 2,600-year-old Greek vase featuring maenads (female followers of Dionysus, the Greek god of wine) and a satyr.Céline Levain
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.”
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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.
