2005 Chateau des Tours, Vacqueyras

About This Wine

The 2005 Château des Tours Vacqueyras is twenty-one years old and drinking deep in its tertiary window — the appellation wine, a more classically southern-Rhône Grenache-led blend, entirely different in register from the estate's Merlot-based Vin de Pays bottlings. Dried cherry, kirsch, garrigue, dried rose, cracked pepper, cured meat, leather, long savoury finish. 2005 was a classical, structured southern Rhône vintage — built for exactly this kind of patient aging. Emmanuel Reynaud farms these Vacqueyras vines biodynamically at Sarrians with horse-plow and native yeasts. One of the most collectible southern-Rhône back-vintages at the estate.

Château des Tours, owned by the Reynaud family since 1935, is the home estate of Emmanuel Reynaud, the renowned winemaker of Château Rayas. Located in Sarrians, just outside Vacqueyras, the estate encompasses 40 hectares of vineyards. Emmanuel, who took over the estate in 1989, employs organic farming methods, manual plowing, and late harvesting, with a deep reverence for old-vine Grenache. The vineyards are horse-plowed and entirely free from modern interventions, resulting in some of the most coveted wines in the Rhône.

About the Producer

Château des Tours is the home estate of Emmanuel Reynaud, the reclusive genius who also inherited the legendary Château Rayas from his uncle Jacques Reynaud. Situated in the foothills of the Dentelles de Montmirail in the southern Rhône, Château des Tours produces Grenache-based red, white, and rosé wines of breathtaking purity and individuality, wines that carry the same quiet brilliance as Rayas at a fraction of the price. Emmanuel farms low-yielding old vines with minimal intervention and an almost mystical patience, allowing nature to dictate the timing of harvest and the character of each vintage. These are arguably the finest-value wines in the entire Rhône Valley, and among the most coveted bottles in all of France.