FEATURES ARCHIVE

Henri Jayer is among the most mythical names in Burgundy, and his wines are among the most sought-after (and expensive) in the world. Jayer was born in 1922 and grew up, along with his brothers Lucien and Georges, working on the family domaine. After the Second World War, he returned to Burgundy to study winemaking at the Université de Dijon with René Engel and vinified his first vintage in 1945.

In 1951, he leased vines in Richebourg, Vosne-Romanée « Aux Brulées » and Nuits-St.-Georges « Meurgers » from the Noirot-Camuzet family in a sharecropping system known as métayage where he tended the vines and delivered half of the fruit to the owners. 

It was also in 1951 that Jayer bought his first parcel in Vosne-Romanée « Cros Parantoux ».  Cros Parantoux had fallen into disuse after phylloxera and had actually been used to plant Jerusalem artichokes. Jayer began to clear it while tending the family domaine and successfully lobbied the INAO to promote it to premier cru status in 1953.  Jayer continued to expand his holdings in this location through the years, purchasing the last portion from Robert Arnoux’s sister in 1970, according to Allen Meadow’s book The Pearl of the Côte. Today, Cros Parantoux enjoys a mythic status, and it is considered the Jayer trademark par excellence. 

Madame Noirot-Camuzet passed away in 1959, leaving her vineyards to her cousin, Jean Méo, who continued the lease with Jayer. The last vintage where Jayer made these wines was 1987, although he continued to work as a consultant to Jean Méo’s son, Jean-Nicolas, until 2000.

In spite of his singular skill, Jayer did not always bottle the wines that he produced. His father had sold the entire production to négociants, a practice that Henri continued. For this reason, there are many négociant bottlings of Jayer’s wines, a fact that confuses many collectors.  These range from négociants in Belgium to Alexis Lichine in the United States and others. 1976 was the first vintage where Jayer bottled much of his production himself, and 1978 was the first vintage he bottled entirely on his own.

Jayer retired in 1995, although he kept about 40% of Cros Parantoux for himself to produce a cuvée labeled as « Réserve »; he leased the rest to his nephew, Emmanuel Rouget. Jayer came out of retirement in 1997 to vinify his ill nephew’s wine, retiring fully in 2001.