Château Quinault L’Enclos: Alain Raynaud
The Maleret-Mons era came to an end during the late 1990s when the property was purchased by Alain Raynaud, in 1997, at a price of approximately 20 million French francs. Originally from the Bordeaux region, Alain was a doctor, although he had given up medicine entirely and returned home, forging a strong friendship with Robert Parker along the way. Indeed, so close is the friendship that Parker is godfather to Alain Raynaud’s daughter, Marie. At the time Alain was best known for his presidency of the Union des Grands Crus de Bordeaux, an office which he held from 1994 until 2000. He was also at the time joint-proprietor of Château La Croix de Gay and Château La Fleur de Gay, the ownership of which he shared with his sister Chantal.
There was by all accounts some friction in the family and I suspect this, plus a desire to prove he could succeed independently, was what drove him to purchase Château Quinault (renaming it Château Quinault L’Enclos in doing so) in St Emilion rather than getting more involved with work at Château La Croix de Gay. Another stimulus was perhaps the rumour that a property development company was looking to acquire the land, for the building of houses. So Alain Raynaud had a slightly run-down domaine on his hands, although it was clearly rich in potential. Robert Parker was full of confidence for his friend, writing in Bordeaux: A Comprehensive Guide (Dorling Kindersley, 3rd edition, 1998) after Raynaud’s acquisition of the domaine, “[t]he property possesses extremely old vines and now an exceptionally talented and committed proprietor. This should turn out to be a name to be considered by serious buyers of Bordeaux”. A more glowing opinion of the proprietor would be hard to come by.
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