Thierry Allemand built his Cornas domaine from nothing beginning in the early 1980s, apprenticing under local legends Noel Verset and Joseph Michel before painstakingly restoring abandoned terraces on the granite slopes above the village. The Reynard lieu-dit lies on steep, south-facing hillsides of decomposed granite (gore), its old vines rooted in thin, free-draining soils. Farming is effectively organic and entirely hand-worked, the terraces being too steep for machinery. 'Cuvee R' is drawn from the oldest Reynard parcels. The 2023 season in the Northern Rhone was warm without being extreme, and the deep-rooted old vines buffered the heat to yield small, concentrated Syrah berries retaining good freshness.

The Syrah is hand-harvested from the Reynard parcels and fermented traditionally in the estate's cool cellar, typically with a portion of whole bunches, relying on indigenous yeasts with gentle extraction by pigeage and remontage. Allemand is known for working with very little added sulphur. Maceration runs for several weeks before pressing, and the wine completes malolactic fermentation before ageing in older oak barrels and demi-muids, none of them new, to preserve fruit purity and the granite-driven minerality. The old-vine 'Cuvee R' bottling is raised for around eighteen months in wood and bottled without fining or filtration.