Insight into Brangelina’s fierce battle over the £150million Paradise vineyard as she locks him out of the couple’s dream home
As Angelina Jolie walked down the aisle in a dress embroidered with drawings of her six children, husband-to-be Brad Pitt gave her an equal share in the dream home they hoped to enjoy together for the rest of their lives.
But after one of the bitterest divorces in Hollywood, the two are now at odds over the £150million winery in southern France.
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As the two continue to fight their battle – the so-called “War of the Roses” – in court, extraordinary details of their earlier life together come to light.
Jolie’s lawyer has accused Pitt, 59, of acting like a “stubborn kid” after his ex sold her half of their winery to a Russian oligarch.
And they also cast shadows on his skills as a winemaker, suggesting that he “deals in illusions, not dirt and grapes.”
Brad and Angelina bought the Chateau Miraval site in 2008 for £21m, initially with a 60/40 split in favor of the former.
It has been suggested that Pitt’s knowledge of viticulture at the time was so minimal that his favorite wine was Heineken.
In return, he is said to view the sale as a “treason” and an act of revenge on the part of 48-year-old Jolie after a judge granted 50-50 custody of his children after their split in 2016, two years after they tied the knot had awarded.
Pitt claims that by selling the vineyard to Russian Yuri Shefler, Jolie was trying to tarnish the reputation of his prized rosé wine.
But what is now a Grapes of Wrath story began very differently in 2005.
The pair were the sexiest — and most scrutinized — couple alive when Brad dumped wife Jennifer Aniston after they met on the set of their movie Mr. & Mrs. Smith” had fallen in love with Angelina.
To escape the glamor of publicity, Brangelina, as they were known, went house hunting while on vacation in France in 2007.
They booked a three-day helicopter tour of Provence in search of a place where their children could “roam free and not be exposed to Hollywood celebrity.”
Miraval, with its 1,000 acres, lake, vineyard and 35 bed mansion fit the bill perfectly.
There was also a recording studio in an old water tower where Pink Floyd recorded their 1979 album The Wall.
When Angelina found out she was pregnant with twins Knox Leon and Vivienne Marcheline, now 14, the couple wanted to push through the sale as soon as possible so their other children, Maddox, now 21, Pax Thien, 19, Zahara Marley, 18, , and… Shiloh, 17, would have a private place to grow up.
The former owner of the property, American engineer Tom Bove, described how one day a helicopter landed on his land and Brad and Angelina came out, then carrying baby Shiloh.
Inviting the couple to dinner, he said: “Angelina let him [Brad] speak.
“She was very gentle on my part.
“You’ve read all of this now, but they were a very nice couple, very sweet and obviously in love.
“Angie smiles”
“Brad and I rearranged the tables in the garden, had lunch, drank Miraval’s wines, which were very good, and then toured the rest of the property.
“It seemed like they wanted to buy it right away.”
Bove says Pitt told him, “This is the first place we’ve been where Angie smiles.”
At the couple’s 2014 wedding, held in the estate’s old chapel with 20 guests, Pitt gave his bride ten percent of his share as a wedding gift.
Lawyers had proposed a “doomsday clause” that said if the couple split up, they would have the right to buy each other’s share.
But Pitt apparently dismissed it, saying it was “not necessary for two sane people” who planned to be together forever.
It would prove to be a fatal mistake.
Pitt’s lawyers have since claimed he and Jolie later struck a pact in which they agreed never to sell the property without each other’s consent — which they have denied.
Bove was asked to move on and manage the property, which gave him a first-hand look at the couple’s celebrity lifestyle.
He described: “Vans and vans arriving with furniture incredibly packed by the best movers.”
When Pitt began the renovations, nannies, a cook, a maid, cleaners, security guards, and personal assistants also arrived; According to Bove, his work was “more Californian than Provençal”.
Provence transformed into a version of the Hollywood Hills, with movie star friends like Johnny Depp, then married to singer Vanessa Paradis, George Clooney, John Malkovich and Star Wars filmmaker George Lucas all living nearby .
Furniture designer Frank Pollaro was flown in from New Jersey to install a 1920s-inspired French desk that Pitt had given Jolie for her birthday.
On it was an inscription by Pitt and a mother-of-pearl constellation in her birth sign, Gemini.
Pitt was delighted to find out that Pollaro was a wine lover, telling him, “I don’t know much about wine, but I’d love to learn.”
When the actor visited Pollaro later in 2009, the designer gave him a bottle of Chateauneuf-du Pape and later received an email from him saying, “This wine was really great and Angie loved it too.”
“Love Letter to My Wife”
When asked by Vanity Fair what kind of crying Pitt liked at the time, Pollaro said, “I think he liked Heineken.”
The family loved life on the estate.
According to Vanity Fair, Pitt installed 30 small screens showing pictures of the children and built a petting zoo full of goats, chickens and peacocks.
Pollaro said, “Miraval was a love letter to Brad’s wife and children that gave Angelina and the children a good life and protected them from the heavy pressures of celebrity.”
But the star was also determined to make “a world-class wine.”
To this end, he teamed up with Marc Perrin, producer of the Chateauneuf-du-Pape wine that Pollaro had given him.
When the first 6,000 bottles of Miraval Rosé went on sale in 2012, they sold out within five hours. Sales would reach £38m in 2021.
Meanwhile, Miravel also produced honey, olive oil, a skincare wine, and music from Miraval Studios. It looked like the A-list couple had found their utopia.
Gary Bradbury, head of security at Miraval, said Pitt “kept the world from his wife”.
He added that Brad spent eight to 12 hours a day with the workers during the reconstruction work, but always found time for his children.
Gary said: “At one o’clock he told me to knock on his door so he could get the quads ready for the kids to ride around the estate.
“Or he would go fishing on the lake with the kids.
“He made sure he was there for his kids at all times.
“Angie would come out and bring lunch and we would all sit and have a picnic.
“It was very loving, quite romantic.
“I used to grab my sandwich and walk away.
“It was her time.”
It is said that Pitt, who enjoyed jogging in the surrounding woods, enjoyed the laid-back life there, sitting on a rock and playing his guitar.
And he dreamed of turning part of Miraval into an artists’ colony.
“I’m a farmer now,” he told Wine Spectator in 2014.
But in September 2016, tensions between the couple escalated on an ill-fated flight that saw Pitt allegedly drunkenly attacking Jolie and dousing his children with red wine and beer.
No charges were brought, but Jolie filed for divorce the next day.
A custody battle led to a legal tug of war over Miravel, from which Jolie claimed she was “frozen.”
She also dismissed an advert for the wine that showed Pitt asleep on a lounge chair and “reminded me of painful times.”
Jolie sold her half of the estate in October 2021, which Pitt reportedly only found out about when it was revealed in a press release.
And in February last year, he filed a lawsuit against her, alleging she illegally sold her stake.
The star’s lawyers claim the sale was made to “weaken” Pitt and “negatively impact” the company.
A source told Vanity Fair, “It’s no coincidence that she sold her shares in Miraval to an opposing party and part of the family home to a stranger right after a judge awarded a big win: 50-50 custody.”
Jolie’s former investment firm, Nouvel, which handled the sale, has now filed a lawsuit against Pitt, alleging that he acted “like a petulant child” and “dealed with illusions, not dirt and grapes.”
Pitt has also been accused of “looting” the winery and spending millions on vanity projects.
It seems tragic that their remaining feud is over a home they once loved so much.
In an email to Pitt, four years after her divorce, Jolie wrote: “Even now it’s impossible to write this without crying.
“Most of all, it’s the place where we brought the twins home and got married there.
“A place where I thought I would grow old.
“But it’s also the place that marks the beginning of the end of our family.”
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