Henri Jayer, Echezeaux Grand Cru 1994

Description

About the Producer

Henri Jayer would make any shortlist of top 20th century winemaker, and he is widely acknowledged as a quality pioneer in Burgundy. His approach sounds today not so radical – keep yields low, use only healthy ripe fruit in the wine, remove the stems, do cold pre-ferment maceration, try not to extract too harshly during fermentation, and age the wine exclusively in new oak for around 18 months. Many tried to imitate him, some focusing on the winemaking. Henri Jayer fell into the world of wine almost by accident. He took the opportunity to buy some parcels of land in Vosne-Romanée, Echézeaux and Nuit-St-Georges. Marriage to a winemaker’s daughter, Marcelle Rouget, and oenology tutelage fostered a love for viticulture in him and following studies in Dijon he bought more fallow land in 1951 which he began to reclaim as wine territory. From the 1950s, Henri began to sell wine under his own label, using forward-thinking practices such as eschewing filtration completely and completely destemming his harvest before maceration, which few other Burgundy winemakers had adopted at the time. His influence and stature were great and his wines began to command prices on a par with Domaine Romanee-Conti. Henri Jayer is a name synonymous with Burgundy, and perhaps one of the best-loved wine personalities of the 20th century thanks to his innovative viticulture approaches and firm beliefs when it comes to what makes a strong or weak wine. Burgundy is becoming an ever more important region for fine wine investment. Within the region, the stature of Domain Henri Jayer cannot be denied. It is perhaps the only other Burgundian producer with a comparable international profile to Domaine de Romanee-Conti- particularly in the Far East, the global region currently responsible for the Burgundy push. Thus, Henri Jayer is one of the key beneficiaries of the broadening of the fine wine investment market and the diversification of Asian buying behaviour. Henri Jayer wines were produced in very small quantities while the great man was still alive and as what stock remains gradually diminishes, it is likely that vintages produced by his protege nephew Rouget, who works the same terroir to the fashion instructed by his uncle, will too see price rises.