The 1996 Rayas, vinified by Jacques Reynaud but bottled by his nephew Emmanuel, exemplifies the primacy of terroir and producer over vintage. The wine bursts from the glass with a lovely bouquet of sweet kirsch, prune, balsam bough, saddle leather and autumn leaves. On the palate the wine is a broad, sappy and nicely balanced middle-weight, which makes a mockery of its critical reception. One moment the wine seems to decline in the glass; the next, it opens up again with a blaze of fruit to enjoy a second wind. Wine is a moving target, and this bottle was a great nemesis to the hubris of forgetting that.

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