The Reynaud family

Château Rayas was founded in 1880 by Albert Reynaud, a notary who turned to the vine after he lost his hearing. His son Louis took over in 1920 and began to bottle the wine under the estate name. He bought Château des Tours in 1935 and Château de Fonsalette in 1945. When he died in 1978, his son Jacques took over Rayas and Fonsalette, and Château des Tours went to Jacques's brother, Emmanuel's father.

Emmanuel, born in 1963, started in the vines at Château des Tours in 1982, after his father was hurt in a tractor accident. The grapes had always gone to the local cooperative. In 1989 he built a cellar and began estate bottling. Jacques died suddenly in 1997, without children, and Emmanuel took charge of Rayas and Fonsalette that same year. One third of Rayas came to him from his uncle, and he bought the rest from his family. Emmanuel Reynaud died in November 2025. His sons Benoît and Louis-Damien were already making the wines of Château des Tours and of Fonsalette, and the three estates passed to his children.

Three estates, several labels

Château Rayas lies north-east of the village of Châteauneuf-du-Pape, not far from Courthézon. It makes a red from Grenache alone and a white from Clairette and Grenache Blanc. Pignan, the second Châteauneuf-du-Pape of the estate, comes from a small parcel in the lieu-dit of that name, just north of Rayas, and is also pure Grenache.

Château de Fonsalette lies near Lagarde-Paréol, about 20 kilometres north of Châteauneuf-du-Pape, with about 12 hectares of vines on a much larger property of woods and olive trees. The estate sits inside the Massif d'Uchaux village area, yet its wines are labelled simply Côtes du Rhône. Fonsalette makes a red from Grenache, Cinsault and Syrah, a white from Grenache Blanc, Clairette and a little Marsanne, and a pure Syrah when the vines give enough. Fonsalette is made in the Rayas cellar, like Rayas and Pignan. Barrels set aside from the three go into La Pialade, a Côtes du Rhône drawn mostly from Fonsalette fruit.

Château des Tours, near Sarrians at the western end of the Vacqueyras area, is by far the largest of the three estates. Its oldest parcels, almost all Grenache, are bottled as Vacqueyras, and the rest as Côtes du Rhône, both under the Château des Tours name. The Domaine des Tours label covers a range of Vaucluse wines, among them a red blend, a pure Clairette and a pure Merlot.

Sand, woods and late picking

The Rayas vineyard covers about 12 to 13 hectares, in plots surrounded by woods. Most plots face north and the trees keep them cool. The soil is mostly sand, without the large round pebbles found in much of Châteauneuf-du-Pape. Sand tends to give pale wines with fine tannins, and Rayas is never dark in colour. The vineyard is divided into three parts by exposure: Le Levant (the rising sun), Le Coeur (the heart) and Le Couchant (the setting sun). Emmanuel harvested and fermented them apart before blending. Fonsalette and Château des Tours are also mainly on sand, scattered with small pebbles at Fonsalette.

Yields are very low, and the family has long picked among the last in the appellation, often after the first autumn rains. Under Emmanuel the Rayas reds became lighter in colour than his uncle's, with more finesse and less grip, but no less alcohol.

In the cellar

At Rayas fermentation starts with native yeasts and extraction is gentle. The wine then ages in large old casks, never new. Some of the foudres were bought second-hand by Louis Reynaud. Fonsalette is made the same way. At Château des Tours fermentation also starts with native yeasts, the wines age partly in casks, and the blends are made in enamel-lined tanks before bottling. The estates release their wines late, often many years after the harvest, and Rayas leaves the cellar only when the family judges it ready to drink.

Reading the label and when to open

Louis Reynaud printed "Premier Grand Cru" on Rayas labels, although Châteauneuf-du-Pape has no official classification. The Château des Tours Grenache Blanc was once sold as Côtes du Rhône. A revision of the appellation boundaries left its parcel outside, so it moved to a Vaucluse label as Les Tours.

Rayas is pale but it keeps. Young, it shows crushed strawberry, blood orange, rose and Provençal herbs; with age come mushroom, forest floor and smoke. Pignan follows the same style on a smaller scale. The Syrah makes Fonsalette darker than Rayas, with firmer tannins, and it can age for thirty years and more. La Pialade shows the house style with less concentration and comes mostly from younger vines. At Château des Tours the Vacqueyras is the most structured wine, the Côtes du Rhône more classic, and the Domaine des Tours wines the most approachable.

The range

The range spans four appellation levels: Châteauneuf-du-Pape for Rayas and Pignan, Vacqueyras for the oldest Château des Tours vines, Côtes du Rhône for Fonsalette, La Pialade and Château des Tours, and Vaucluse for the Domaine des Tours wines and Les Tours. The wines above are the ones in our cellar. See also the Rhône Valley, the Châteauneuf-du-Pape estates Henri Bonneau & Fils and Le Vieux Donjon, or Domaine Le Sang des Cailloux in Vacqueyras.