Domaine du Grangeon’s Christophe Reynouard

Domaine du Grangeon was created in 1998 when Christophe Reynouard took over the family owned domaine from his father. Christophe studied winemaking under the tutelage of Georges Verney, the famous maker of Condrieu. The vineyard is located in the Ardeche on the Western bank of the Rhone, midway between Lyon and Avignon and the region has been cultivated for millennia, long before the Roman times.

The region boasts a rich diversity of grape varieties including Syrah, Viognier, Chardonnay, Sauvignon, Grenache and Ugni Blanc, alongside Pinot Noir, the usual suspects Cabernet Sauvignon, Merlot and Gamay, plus the ancient and very under-utilized Chatus grape.

Christophe crafts a number of unusual wines including two “vin de Paille” made from Viognier and Gamay, plus the Chatus – a wine only a handful of experienced winemakers can perfect. On his recent trip to Hong Kong, Christophe sat down with Wine Times to talk about how he got into winemaking and why he decided to make a wine from a grape so ancient that barely anyone else can make it.

WTHK:  What inspired you to become a winemaker?

CR: “Oh! I was a very young boy and my grandfather used to make a little bit of wine. When I was young I used to love bottling wine and the cellars aromas were amazing to me! I used to love tasting the wines while they were fermenting as they were high in sugar and low in alcohol. I love Viognier during fermentation and wish I could bottle that as it has so much peach and pear flavour. Oenology when I was young was a tough word to learn but it was the first big word that I learned! I then studied at Montpellier and Dijon and was the only person in the area to study as no one else in the area liked going to school”!

WTHK: What’s special about the area where your wines are made?

CR: “We only have granite soils and all our vineyards are terraced. Everything is hand harvested on the terraces but we use machines for the harvesting of Chardonnay. Obviously on the traces we cannot use machines and this hand harvesting ensures the quality of each berry we pick”.

WTHK: You make a lot of different grape varieties but what is your favourite to work with?

CR: “Well, the easiest is Syrah because hard work in the vineyard makes work in the cellar much easier. The hardest to work with is Ugni Blanc. It’s easy in the vineyard but hard in the cellar. You have to work hard on Ugni Blanc to get it perfect and timing is crucial. Making good white and rosé wine is like cooking, it’s all about the timing”.

WTHK: There seems to be a lot of Viognier, something you are very good at making, in your region in the Ardeche.

CR: “Oui! There’s a lot of Viognier grown in the area. There are 350 hectares of Viognier in the region and people like it as it’s very aromatic. It’s a feminine style wine that suits female drinkers very much. People who like Viognier like Syrah and vice-versa – the mouth feels are pretty similar. But the problem is that Viognier is still a wine that is a tough sell in restaurants”.

WTHK: What’s special about the Syrah grown in the Ardeche?

CR: “Syrah for me is a woman’s wine when it comes from the Ardeche and especially from Domaine du Grangeon because they are floral and elegant and not what people expect from Syrah these days as many of them are over-extracted and have high levels of alcohol. You find these kinds of wines mainly in the new world but they are the opposite of this in the Ardeche”.

WTHK: Another grape you specialise in is Chatus, thought of as an ancient grape. Can you tell me more about that?

CR: “My Chatus vines are very old and we grow a little bit of it now intentionally. Actually, in the 

area most of the Chatus vines were growing up against the walls of the vineyards and no-one bothered harvesting them and you can’t dig them up as they have very deep roots and this causes the walls to fall down! The first time I made a 100 per cent Chatus was in 1988 and I was studying in a winery. I asked the boss if I could try to make it and he said “why not”! Not many people had the old vines at that time so I called them up and asked to have their grapes. All the wine growers saw me as very young and wanted to see what I could do. But what I received was a whole bunch of random grapes so it took me a long time to sort out the grapes as I really wanted only 100 per cent Chatus. The wine is very big and highly tannic and those who tried it found it very different. But it has great potential for aging which makes it interesting. Now, we green harvest and take a lot of care to drop the tannins and make a more sophisticated, rounded wine. When the Chatus is made from old vines, it’s got the qualities of Pinot Noir. It’s a very interesting grape to work with”.

Domaine du Grangeon wines are available in Hong Kong from Cottage Vineyards International and can be contacted at tastings@cottagevineyards.comor you can call them on (+852) 23951293