2015 Liber Pater Denarius Blanc

No longer does the most expensive wine in the world come from French Burgundy, but from the Bordeaux region. It is the Liber Pater, which still exceeds the Romanée Conti in price. Loïc Pasquet, the Bordeaux winegrower behind Liber Pater has released a new label, Denarius. “I wanted to make something affordable,” Pasquet says ironically. While it has no intention of surpassing Domaine La Romanée Conti in terms of awards, it is still ahead of the 1855-classified First Growths. “Liber Pater is extremely expensive and rare. Denarius places wines from its own rootstocks on the tables of French restaurants. This is actually very affordable to be able to taste pre-phylloxera wine,” Pasquet explains, making these wines as they used to be made with vines from the same era. He returns to the roots of the Bordeaux wine region and then to the mid-19th century with peaks towards the 1850s and does so by using old vineyard management techniques (mixed crops and trained vines, tillage with a mule , organic sprays and very high planting densities of 20,000 vines/ha) along with extremely old original vines. Liber Pater claims to provide the historic taste of Bordeaux wines.

The Liber Pater Denarius Blanc 2015 was only released for the first time at the end of 2020 and we did not receive it until spring 2021. Extremely scarce and is one of the few dry white Bordeaux wines made from 100% Semillon. Only a few hundred bottles of this Liber Pater Denarius blanc were made and the 2015 Denarius blanc is the first vintage of this second wine from Liber Pater.

Liber Pater Denarius is a very labour-intensive wine to produce. The grapes are pressed under the protection of a CO2 blanket. Like the Liber Pater Denarius, the fermentation takes place exclusively in 100% new French oak barrels from Remond.

The wine ages on its lees for an average of 16 months with regular stirring. Freshly squeezed yellow and orange citrus fruits with honeysuckle undertones on the nose and mouth. Rich, lush and concentrated, this is a wine with ripe fruit and perfect freshness.