Arnaud de Villeneuve is a winery from Roussillon in southern France, established in 2007 from the merger of three historic wine-making projects: Salses le Château, La Roussillonnaise, and Pézilla la Rivière. The name refers to the medieval scholar Arnaud de Villeneuve, inventor of the mutage method – a technique of fortifying wine by adding strong alcohol to fermenting must. Three histories, one winery The oldest of the three origins dates back to 1909, when over 300 winemakers from the Salses le Château area founded a winegrowers' association – one of the first in France and the first in the region. Initially, only red wines were produced, but from 1929, with the establishment of the new Sainte Colombe vineyard, white wines and Vins Doux Naturels (VDN) – French fortified wines using the mutage method – also began to be produced. La Roussillonnaise was established in 1932 on the site of a former distillery and focused on dry wines. In the late 1960s, Vins Fins and Les Vignerons, specializing in fortified wines, joined it. It was here that they first produced Muscat de Noël – a special Christmas muscat whose tradition dates back to the Middle Ages. Pézilla la Rivière was built in 1935. The winery was expanded 12 times. A key expansion took place in 1955, when a section dedicated specifically to the production of Vins Doux Naturels was created. The terraces along the Têt valley enabled continuous development until the beginning of the 21st century.