For the eleven years they were together, Angelina Jolie and Brad Pitt collaborated on many things. Some of those collabs were great: their six kids, Mr. and Mrs. Smith, A Mighty Heart, various charitable work. Some of those collabs were not so great: By the Sea, and whatever happened on that plane in 2016. But perhaps their greatest material collaboration may be something that started as a “what the hell” vanity project. Back in 2006, they leased and then bought the Chateau Miraval in the south of France. Even through the years of contentious divorce, they still own the property and they both visit it often enough. Several years before everything went to hell, they decided to use Miraval for what its original intention: as a vineyard/winery. I feel like this was mostly Brad too – they studied up and figured out that they were going to make a good rosé. The Miraval rosé has become somewhat legendary in wine-snob circles, due to the limited quantities and the great reviews across the board. And now a record-breaking wine is Brangelina’s biggest legacy as a couple.
Three grand is pocket change for folks like Provençal vignerons Brad Pitt and Angelina Jolie. But it’s just become a significant figure in the rosé orbit they inhabit: €2,600 is how much a magnum of Muse de Miraval, a new prestige cuvée from the Côtes de Provence estate owned by the (onetime) couple, fetched at auction last month—a new record for still rosé.
The new rosé made its debut at the Cannes Film Festival, and the sale benefits the GoodPlanet Foundation, but there was plenty of time and toil behind the splashy launch: The 2018 Muse is the first wine off the line at a brand-new winery on the Château Miraval property, and a big blush statement from winemaker Marc Perrin. His family, of Château de Beaucastel fame, co-owns Miraval with Pitt and Jolie.
“The idea for us with this wine is to show that great rosé can be as great as great white or great red,” Perrin told Unfiltered. “It can evolve with time and become extremely complex. That’s why we decided to bottle it in magnums so that people try to keep it as [long] as possible.” Outside the auction world, retailers had priced the wine at about $290 per mag.
Long before its red-carpet debut, Muse was a soil study: Perrin eventually selected two of the best and oldest parcels of Grenache and Rolle (Vermentino) on the property’s 2,500 acres for the cuvée. And where the standard Miraval bottlings are sent to the Perrin facility up in the Rhône for élevage, Muse is crushed, fermented and aged in a new winery on the Miraval property; 2018 was the inaugural vintage. The cellar has been equipped with egg-shaped concrete tanks, which, Perrin explained, is a return to the old.
Unfortunately, all 1,700 magnums of the new juice have sold out on the winery’s end—hopefully not a portent of rosé shortages to come.
This little side project has turned out to be extremely cool – the Miraval rosé is now one of the most sought-after and well-liked rosés in the world. Is it the combination of old winemaking technology combined with good, fertile soil? Is it because Brad and Angelina really don’t seem to do much and they still get to stamp “Chateau Miraval” on the bottles? I don’t know enough about wine to tell you. When I used to drink, I did enjoy a cheap rosé though, and I would love to try a glass of the fancy sh-t.
Photos courtesy of Backgrid and Avalon Red.
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