The bitter legal battle over Brad Pitt and Angelina Jolie’s $500 million French winery could hinge on a measly $1.
The Hollywood exes have been fighting over the vineyard they purchased in 2008 ever since Jolie filed for divorce in 2016.
The legal war over the estate is more complex than a 1961 Bordeaux and has been playing out in courts in California and Luxembourg.
But perhaps the most compelling part of the dispute is over a sum that wouldn’t get you a glass of plonk: a single euro!
When the two bought the vineyard in happier times — while Jolie was pregnant with twins, two of the six kids they raised together — Pitt wound up with 60% and Jolie had 40% of the property.
But just before they married at the estate in 2014, Pitt gave Jolie another 10%, so they’d be equal 50/50 partners as a sign of grapey love and devotion.
The destined-to-be-contested shares passed from Pitt to his then-bride-to-be for 1 euro. (Or, as of Thursday’s exchange rate, $1.08.)
After they split, Jolie sold her half of the vineyard to the wine division of Stoli Group.
But the thing is, Pitt’s lawyers have argued, Jolie never paid up!
In Pitt’s court filings in Luxembourg, his side says that the 1 euro bill was never paid — and also that it wasn’t the fair market value of the spread anyway, they claim.
They’re asking the court to nix the Jolie-Stoli deal as a result, and now the disputed shares are tied up in escrow as an outside party reviews the debts.
A top Stoli exec has said in a past statement: “We are not aware of any issues related to our purchase of 50% of Miraval nor do we have any concerns.”
Of course, properties sell for $1 all the time.
According to Quora: “When a property is sold for $1, it is usually a symbolic amount that signifies a transfer of ownership, often within a family. This type of transaction is typically considered a gift, and the sale is perceived as a gift for tax purposes.”
An insider familiar with Pitt and Jolie said her team was left scratching their heads over his 1 euro legal tactic, wondering if they even paid the thing and that it was moot.
Said a source, “In the US, people do this all this time, selling for one dollar . . . but nobody ever pays the dollar. Nobody takes it seriously . . . It was before they were married, and it was a reflection that they were a family.”
Across the globe in the California battle between the exes, Jolie filed a motion on Thursday asking for documents that would disclose details of an “all-encompassing” nondisclosure agreement Pitt allegedly demanded that she says scuppered the sale of her shares in the winery to him.
Pitt, 60, has previously claimed it was Jolie, 48, who reneged on their exclusive buyout negotiations after she said she wanted out of Miraval, and before she later sold off her shares to Stoli.
Jolie has argued the couple had no agreement regarding two-party consent to a sale, while Pitt says she sold it out from under him, which she denies.
Jolie also said in new legal filings Thursday that she and her family have never returned to the chateau since 2016, days before she filed for divorce.
Meanwhile, the 1 euro question remains.
Sources previously told The Post the Luxembourg proceedings would take a year to result in a ruling.
Jolie’s Thursday filing also brought up the “Maleficent” star’s abuse allegations made against Pitt, saying in court papers he wanted an NDA because “while Pitt’s history of physical abuse of Jolie started well before the family’s September 2016 plane trip from France to Los Angeles, this flight marked the first time he turned his physical abuse on the children as well. Jolie then immediately left him,” and never went back to Miraval.
A source familiar with Pitt told Page Six that Jolie “continually tries to distract from legal losses by offering irrelevant or inaccurate information,” in further court filings.
Pitt’s side has previously said “the non-disparagement clause in the contract” was “totally standard,” and the “Benjamin Button” star has previously disputed the abuse claims.
