Brad Pitt and Angelina Jolie's French winery Chateau Miraval is under threat from wildfires burning near the village of Correns in southeastern France, even as the former couple's legal war over the property grinds toward a 2027 trial.
The Correns Fire is currently burning in the area surrounding the estate, which Pitt, 62, and Jolie, 51, purchased together in 2012. A photo obtained by TMZ showed brown smoke filling the sky close to the winery and its sprawling vineyards. Firefighters have been drawing water from a private lake on the expansive property to help battle the flames. A separate image captured towers of gray smoke near a vineyard in Correns on Friday, and after nightfall, red and orange flames lit up the sky as crews continued fighting the blaze.
The Daily Mail reached out to representatives for Jolie for comment. A representative for Pitt declined to comment.
Pitt and Jolie are not the only Hollywood figures caught up in the fires. George Clooney and his wife Amal, along with their nine-year-old twins Alexander and Ella, were forced to evacuate their French home in the Provence-Alpes-Côte d'Azur region earlier this week. Wildfires have also spread to Italy and Spain.
Clooney addressed the situation in a letter to the mayor of Brignoles, Didier Brémond, which his representative confirmed to People on Wednesday. Brignoles is home to just under 18,000 people.
"Dear Didier, At this point we have no idea whether our beautiful home makes it through this terrible moment," Clooney wrote. "As we evacuate Brignoles we want to emphasise 2 things, first we hope you and the people of our city are safe and second that Amal and I are committed to making sure that whatever happens to our village, we are part of this community and we'll be part of making it whole. We love Brignoles and our friends who live there."
The Clooneys announced their evacuation on the same day the EU's emergency response chief warned that wildfires could potentially engulf "all of Europe" within days. Greece, Italy and Central Europe are expected to face the highest wildfire risk in the coming weeks.
The Legal Battle Over Miraval
Amid the fire crisis, the dispute between Pitt and Jolie over Chateau Miraval continues. Pitt first filed suit against Jolie in February 2022, alleging she secretly sold her half of the Provencal estate where the two married in 2014 without his consent. He has claimed the pair had an implied agreement that neither would sell their share to a third party without the other's approval. Jolie's side has denied such a deal ever existed.
Pitt alleges Jolie breached their pact when she sold her stake to Russian billionaire Yuri Shefler through his company's wine division, Tenute del Mondo, part of the Stoli Group. The deal was valued at $64 million, making Shefler Pitt's unwilling business partner. Pitt has also separately requested that Jolie hand over tax records and financial documents covering the years 2017 to 2019.
In legal documents reviewed by TMZ, Jolie described Pitt's use of her past statements as part of a "continued mischaracterization and selective quoting." Her legal team clarified that her comments about seeking "financial independence" referred to separating her finances from Pitt's following their split. Her attorneys told the court she had been looking to "untangle her life and her finances from" Pitt, adding that "separating from one's ex-husband is categorically different from allegations that one is suffering from general financial distress."
The California Court of Appeal reversed a lower court ruling that had allowed Shefler to exit the lawsuit by arguing he had little involvement in the deal. A California Superior Court also granted Pitt's motion to depose members of the Stoli Group, including executive Alexey Oliynik. Those depositions are required to take place in London by September 30 of this year.
One of Jolie's lawyers told People that Pitt's recent courtroom wins "have made no impact on the merits of the case." The actress is, according to that attorney, "looking forward to defeating the case at trial next year so that their family can finally focus their energies on healing and moving on."
The combined estate is valued at approximately $164 million. Trial is scheduled for February 1, 2027, with mediation ordered for October 28. Pitt and Jolie married in 2014, separated two years later, and their divorce became legal in 2019. In late 2024 the pair reached a divorce settlement after an eight-year legal battle. They share six children: Maddox, 24, Pax, 22, Zahara, 21, Shiloh, 20, and 18-year-old twins Knox and Vivienne.
