In June 2023 I remember pinching myself as I sat down to a dinner in Singapore with eight vintages of Chateau Rayas and a handful of excited wine lovers. I remember emphasising in my remarks that, whilst any number of people around the globe might be uncorking precious bottles of 1st growth Bordeaux that night, we were probably the only ones on the planet sat down to such an array of Rayas. Extremely thankful to find myself at the table, I was convinced our dinner was a true one-off that I would never get to repeat.
Well, I guess sometimes lightning really does strike the same place twice…
Last month I was pinching myself once again, this time confronted with a line-up of Chateau Rayas in a restaurant in Jakarta! A group of passionate wine collectors had seen our dinner of last year on social media and come together to create a round two, to coincide with my visit to spend time with Vinum customers in Indonesia.
We gathered in the excellent The Bridge restaurant – a true wine hub in Jakarta, with excellent stemware and service – with each guest putting a bottle on the table.
In terms of serving order, I tried to anticipate the weight and density of the wines, working from the lighter years to the more powerful vintages.
The regime for preparing bottles of Rayas – opening in advance and decanting – is something of a minefield. Proprietor Emmanuel Reynaud apparently advises his restaurant clients that his wine is best opened 24 hours before it is served, which is one of the reasons Chateau Rayas is often kept ‘off-list’ in France and only available if pre-ordered by diners in the know. At the Singapore dinner I was surprised that so many of the so-called big vintages seemed so taciturn, and were out-shone by apparently more modest years. A friend had suggested that we had not given them enough air and told me he had recently had an epic 2009 that the sommelier had opened a full 48 hours beforehand, with the bottle left in a cool cellar.
Our dilemma was how to give the wines sufficient air whilst juggling travel plans, daytime schedules, the climate and Jakarta’s notorious traffic. With the best will in the world, and full deployment of cooler bags and aircon, I think most people would be reluctant to spend the day accompanied by an open bottle of rare and hugely expensive Chateauneuf-du-Pape, including having it jiggle around during a drive across town.
In the end, most of the ‘bigger’ vintages we drank had been opened around lunchtime, so they saw a good 8-9 hours or air before being decanted prior to serving. Other bottles, which tended to be the lighter vintages, were opened and splash decanted around 1730h to maximise their opportunity to breathe. We only had one last minute substitute that was decanted at the beginning of dinner before being inserted into the late stages of the line up.
2000 Chateauneuf-du-Pape, Chateau Rayas
This was one of my favourite wines from the Singapore dinner. I wanted to start with this as a slightly lighter vintage that is fully mature. Guttingly, though, it was just touched by cork taint… enough TCA to dull the aromas and scalp the flavours from the palate. So sad as there was lovely wine beneath.
Sadly, no one is immune from cork taint. Luckily, the owner of this bottle had generously put a substitute in their bag so we swiftly uncorked and decanted the 2011 to taste later in the evening.
2008 Chateauneuf-du-Pape, Chateau Rayas
From the beginning, this was just absolutely beautiful and utterly seductive, with no quarter given to the challenging vintage in the southern Rhone. The signature aromatics and texture of Rayas were fully on show.
Stunning aromas and scent. Menthol, spice and layered red fruit. The palate shows more spice and a gorgeous tobacco note. Wow. Such class, poise, energy and length. Compelling, silky texture.
96/100
2003 Chateauneuf-du-Pape, Chateau Rayas
The 2003 was poured at this point in anticipation of a typical example of this slightly heavy and clumsy vintage. In reality, the wine gave but the merest nod towards the stereotypes of its growing season, transcending the vintage in the same way that Rayas transcends Chateauneuf-du-Pape.
Only very slightly thick-textured and full in terms of vintage character. Has a degree of heaviness and evolution but it’s still nuanced. It is very difficult to imagine other examples of 2003 still having so much life and freshness. Flavours of liquorice and a cooling minty tobacco character. A touch warm on the finish.
92/100
2007 Chateauneuf-du-Pape, Chateau Rayas
The finest 2007 I’ve had. Has an intoxicating, complex, heady scent – yes, there’s alcohol warmth but also a lot of perfume and fragrance. Both the colour and profile have a dark-toned quality, in fact this is markedly dark in colour for Rayas. Pepper and leather come to the fore on the palate. Very large in scale and still showing potential for further improvement. I get the sense that the density and concentration will continue to unfurl. Tobacco on the finish which seems to be a Rayas signature.
I was expecting to see parallels between this vintage and the 2003 but both wines confounded my expectations. Too many 2007s have toppled under the weight of their huge scale and intensity, and fallen over. Chateau Rayas 2007 has the audacity to still be on the way up, with the promise of further improvement still to come.
95/100
2011 Chateauneuf-du-Pape, Chateau Rayas
Our last minute stand in for the corked 2000, this was splash decanted and given as much air time as we could afford it prior to serving the two big guns of the night. I must admit, I am thoroughly smitten by the lighter and cooler vintages of Chateau Rayas: 2008, 2006, 1996. I can now add 2011 to that list.
Lovely light colour, especially in contrast to the 2007. Has aromas of musk, perfume and spice – back to the Burgundian style – and maybe a whisper of the Turkish delight note that someone mentioned they find in Rayas. Silky, fine-grained and lifted on the palate. There’s a complex mid-palate scent and it’s all driven by fruit in the treble register. Such a pretty and elegant CNP.
93/100
2009 Chateauneuf-du-Pape, Chateau Rayas
Closed down and very stern. I wasn’t expecting it to be so taciturn. Complexity and energy are starting to be revealed on the palate. It’s big-boned and muscular in profile with a soaring mid-palate spice but, ultimately, it seems impenetrable at this point. Despite all the heft, it’s balanced and has the density and fruit to compensate the massive structure. A beast, but in a good way and needs masses of time.
I guess I am still waiting for my Damascene moment with this wine. I had been expecting at least a glimpse of the generosity, opulence and charm of 2009 – it is usually such an easy vintage to love. Instead, I found Rayas in Chateau Latour mode: aloof, imperious and all structure. This bottle had been open about the longest of anything we drank, yet maybe 2009 needs the full 48 hours recommended by my friend?!
94++/100
2010 Chateauneuf-du-Pape, Chateau Rayas
Just as the 2003 and 2007 refused to conform to my expectations, the 2010 declined to be the surly, introspective and structured wine I had anticipated and instead performed almost exactly as I had thought the 2009 would show.
Similarly huge to the 2009 but this is expressive and much more demonstrative. Pepper, sweet spice, musk and floral tones dominate the nose. Scented, complex and kaleidoscopic in its range. Despite the weight and girth there is a sense of delicacy and weightless precision on the palate. Spherical in its tannin. Astonishing stuff!
98/100
I am lucky to be building up a bank of experience with Rayas, although I doubt I will be lucky enough for the lightning to strike a third time and for there to be another dinner in the near future. It is not a wine I feel I know particularly well and, in the same way that bottles can prove elusive to find in the market, I feel there is something elusive about the character of Chateau Rayas. Something that dances just out of reach and which refuses to be pinned down.
The signature characteristics that stood out to me as I drank these wines were texture and aroma. Everyone talks about Chateau Rayas as that rare Chateauneuf that is 100% Grenache grown on sand, in an appellation dominated by the famous galets pudding stones. The wine’s silky texture is attributed to the sandy terroir, to the point at which any number of aspirational wines are described in terms of their Rayas-esque sandy soils giving a particularly notable texture. Of course, hardly any of them come anywhere near close!
Many wines are silky but the unique texture of Chateau Rayas is something more singular. Maybe it is silky-squared? I described the tannins of the 2010 as spherical, and that is something to do with the texture but it doesn’t quite cover it. This is one of those examples where I cannot quite find the words to describe the quality of the wine. It is just a bit finer than fine-spun, like bedsheets of fine Indian cotton with an impossibly high thread count…filigree is a good word, but still falls slightly short…
Aromatics are perhaps a little bit easier to describe. There is definitely something flamboyant about the nose of a great glass of Chateau Rayas. It is Grenache at its most exuberantly fragrant; Chateauneuf at its most ostentatiously floral. A good friend, who has far more Rayas experience than I, suggested that there is almost an element of Turkish delight about a good Rayas – think spices, rose petals and perfume. This is something I started to pick up on with the 2011 in particular. The most recurring signature I found in the wines, however, was a note of tobacco, especially on the finish. Not the cigar box scent of older Medoc wines but the sweetness, spice and woody notes of fresh tobacco, almost a heady, earthy character.
Chateau Rayas transcends Chateauneuf-du-Pape in the same way that Romanee Conti transcends Vosne Romanee and Soldera does Montalcino. Each is very much a product of its origin, but they occupy a class apart from their peers because they do not really have any peers. Revelling in these rare vintages of Chateauneuf with such a passionate, knowledgeable and welcoming group of wine lovers was a total privilege. I do not kid myself that I now have any great insight into the genius wines of Chateau Rayas, but I am enormously grateful to everyone who made this remarkable dinner possible.
