Liber Pater Vin de France 2018

Shared in a week where a number of mature vintages from the biggest names of Bordeaux were consumed, it was always going to be interesting to show Liber Pater. It is such a different wine in shape and form from these, entirely as winemaker Loïc Pasquet intended. Unoaked, savoury, delicate and finely spiced, this falls more on the side of dried herbs, tobacco, black tea and fennel than rich fruits. I stand by my last tasting note of the 2018 vintage: the impressive thing is that it might be the (self-styled) most expensive wine in the world, and yet it is far from being the most turbo charged, and that is an extremely difficult thing to resist if you are crafting a wine intended for this price bracket. It has a moreish, palate-hugging pleasure that you want to come back to, and it’s a true achievement. Fermented and aged in amphoras.