The texture and structure are fantastic, it’s velvety and shows incredible freshness, complexity, layers, spices, aromas. It combines tertiary aromas with great pure fruit and a superb length make it a truly incredible 1989 VR. It completely transcends the appellation and is Grand Cru is every sense… A monumental wine. I absolutely loved it. Near epiphany. Now, it’s not that I expected more, but it’s not completely incredible either. Rather “wow” than “WOW”. It remains Jayer “Cros Parantoux” and I must say that it is very special indeed. I am glad I had this wine. Very glad indeed.
Thanks for sharing your impressions - I’ve yet to try a Jayer wine. Sounds fantastic.
Merci for the note! I can’t wait to try some Jayer wines, I’ve only had the Rouget Cros Parantoux (1991) and it was glorious, to put it mildly. God I miss Burgundy… ![[cry.gif]](/uploads/db3686/original/2X/8/853b6e76c6e8406be77a6727c2a27ad1672678b3.gif "cry"){kind=small}
Great notes, sadly, I’m on Ed’s side of the fence too.
From what I’ve read and discussed with others, seems like Jayer is up my alley too, at least style wise.
Jayer’s wines remain remarkable, but it should be kept in mind that he only started bottling under his own name late in the 1970s. Unlike today, no one was doing anything like what he was doing, and so they were a revelation carrying far more impact on the Burgundy fans of that era than they do today. (Jayer’s wines had been available before under the Alexis Lichine label with a sub-identification, but they were heavily filtered, probably explaining why Jayer’s bottles under his own name came with a statement that they had not been filtered.)
I recently hosted a dinner in which I served wine from Jayer and DRC to contrast and highlight the role of stems, as Jayer was adamant against their use and DRC habitually uses them. The approaches were different, but both were superb (duh!) and no one objected to either approach. Yet again, the marvel of the diversity of Burgundy – there is no one correct way to heaven.
1990 Jayer Cros Parantoux still remains a top 5 wine that I have drunk, well at leat top 10, but probably top 5.
Where was my invite??? WTF!!!
Just kidding. Did you post notes anywhere on this? Would love to read through.
I’m still of the firm belief that farming dictates everything. Don’t do what doesn’t make sense in the cellar if the vineyard tells you otherwise.
Didn’t post or even take notes on the dinner – it was with a few good friends who know Burgundy well (one sells German and Austrian wines, but formerly sold lots of Burgundy and one makes wine here but also brokers the best Burgundy barrels) and I wanted to stay part of the conversation with them (plus I had to watch the kitchen!).
As for your comment about the farming, yes, the Burgundy producers (and those from all other areas) that I prefer will all without fail tell you that all that they can do is screw things up in the cellar, they can’t add anything to what was done in the vineyard. Similarly, top chefs that I admire say the same thing about the products that they cook with. Nevertheless, their paths to the finished product may diverge – significantly in Burgundy, much less so for, e.g., Rieslings in Germany.
Awesome note, Michael. Sounds like a textural delight and an all-around winner. Hope to try one of these someday.
I have been a big fan of Monsieur Jayer for a long time and have been fortunate to taste a fair share of his wines. One of my impressions over the years is that his winemaking style seems to have produced wines that were a tad more magical in their earlier years after the vintage, and that over time the gap between his wines and some of his neighbors tended to diminish a bit IME. With the '89 Cros Parantoux, in the decade of the 1990s one could not have asked for a more dramatic and voluptuous expresision of Vosne-Romanee, with a great base of soil tied to utterly profound depth and purity of fruit, floral and spice tones. But as the years went by, a bit of the fruit component relaxed, and the wine came back down to earth a bit- as Michal observed, moving from “WOW to wow” in its ability to make a serious impression. It is still a great wine by any stretch of the imagination, but I think it was perhaps greatest in its first dozen years of life, and I have had this impression with many other Jayer wines as well.
I would be curious of what vintages you had Claude at your dinner, how the wines showed and whether your impressions match mine in this regard. Around the turn of the century I was fortunate enough to drink a nice variety of Jayer wines from the vintages of 1985- 1991, and my impressions were consistent in that with most of these wines (the fairly structured 1986s and 1990s being exceptions) were at that point at their absolute apogees, and more recently tasted bottles have been a tad more subdued in terms of both aromatics and flavors in comparison to their previous high water marks. During the same time period when I was tasting a lot of Jayer, several of the older vintages, such as 1980, 1979, 1978 were not quite as sublime as their counterparts in the 1985-1991 range (nor as magical as they had been 8-10 years earlier), while the '93s remained still too young to have hit their peaks. Just a couple of weeks ago the '88 Cros Parantoux was very good, but again, it seemed even more impressive a few years ago- despite the fact that the wine is still not really blossomed is still fairly young in structural terms.
I strongly believe that Monsieur Jayer made a sea change in Burgundy during the later years of his career, and that his example strongly inspired a generation of Burgundians that have led the renaissances that we see in Burgundy today. For this, his contribution cannot be overstated. But as Claude alluded to, perhaps at the end of the day, his belief in great vineyard husbandry will be the legacy for which he is most remembered, and his winemaking techniques of complete destemming, pre-fermentation maceration and 100% new oak will be seen as important signposts that set the limit at one end of the stylistic spectrum, but perhaps in terms of crafting truly long-lived Burgundies, were not quite as successful as his unrelenting pursuit of viticultural perfection. This is not to say that his wines are not utterly profound when caught at the proper time, but it has been my impression that his winemaking techniques really front-loaded a lot of the magic (probably unintentionally), and that with many decades of cellaring, there are other producers’ wines that I might be tempted to reach for ahead of bottles from Monsieur Jayer.
Best,
John
John – We had the 1998 Henri (& Georges) Jayer Echézeaux and the 1990 DRC Romanée-Saint-Vivant (sequentially, not side-by-side). I’ve been enjoying the 1998 for a number of years (such was the power of some critics’ condemnation of 1998 that, like 1993, everything normally difficult to obtain was available for those who recognized the quality), and the wine now is consistent with the way it has been all along. It doesn’t seem to be in danger of declining but is probably as good as it ever will be. Typical Jayer smooth, suave, upfront fruit. The RSV had long been a weak link in the DRC chain, but with the purchase of the vines in 1988 (I think my recollection of the year is correct), the Domaine was free to do all that it wanted to do in the vineyard, and the result was an almost immediate and dramatic improvement in the quality. This wine was darker, deeper, more complex, not at all stewed like some 1990s can be, and although already greatly enjoyable should gain even more with another decade or two of aging. The differences of technique, vineyards, and I think the personalities of the producers was most apparent in both wines.
I agree that Jayer’s wines are unusually seductive relatively young and probably lose something with longer aging. I also agree that they are at one end of the style spectrum – something that I think one has to be aware of in appreciating them, otherwise they can be a bit confounding.
I always chuckle when I think of the cherubic Mssr. Jayer. A friend brought me to a Jayer tasting in the nineties, where I met the man, invited there by Martine Saunier, his importer, who was also at the dinner. Standing next to them was the first time I’ve ever felt tall (I’m only 5’ 10"), as they probably didn’t have 10 feet of height between the two of them. The entire dinner at Citrus was devoted to Jayer wines and honoring the man. At one point, the waiter tried to refill my glass for the umpteenth time and I uttered the sacrilegious phrase, “No thank you, I’ve had enough Jayer wine.” My friend still teases me about that comment.
I’ve been lucky to have quite a variety of Jayer wines over the years and bought a lot when the prices were just stunning–88 Cros for $110, 78 Cros bought in the 90s for $300, and so forth. A couple Jayer dinners were amazing, one by Greg Linn several years ago.
As many know, a lot of the Rouget Cros is identical to the Jayer Cros in the 90s and wines like 95 Rouget Cros are stunning still. I generally prefer Jayer’s Cros over his Richebourg.
Great thread.
alan
Hi Claude,
Nice pick up on the '98 Georges bottling- a wine I have always loved and have cellared in several vintages. Based on my experience with other vintages of the Georges Jayer Echezeaux, you are probably spot on that it is at its apogee at age eleven- even the 1993 was better in my opinion a few years ago than it is today. It is funny that the 1998s in general still have a bit of a lowly reputation, given how beautiful they have been since the outset- at least at the best addresses. I have often wondered if Pierre Rovani’s differing assessment of the vintage had to do with his perhaps favoring the more heavily oaked and heavily extracted school of producers at that time, who may not have been as successful as the more “classical” producers in that vintage. Even last night, at a Mugnier Musigny vertical, several tasters surprised me by being surprised at the sublime quality of the 1998 Musigny.
For those who may not know the Georges Jayer bottlings, Georges was one of Henri’s older brothers (another brother, Lucien, also followed a career as a vigneron and made his own wines) and went into forestry as a career, rather than winemaking. He engaged his brother Henri to tend the vines and make the wine for him, which was labeled as Gerges et Henri Jayer on the label. There were two wines produced under the Georges Jayer label, an Echezeaux (from different plots to Henri’s own Echezeaux) and a brilliant village Nuits St. Georges. As Henri got on in years, his nephew, Emmanuel Rouget, ended up tending the vines for all three Jayer brothers, Georges, Lucien and Henri, and as as part of his mettayage agreement, he received fifty percent of the production from each of his uncles’ vines- which at least from the 1989 vintage onwards, he took in barrles of wine, rather than in grapes. As he was also tending Henri’s Cros Parantoux parcel, one can understand the enthusiasm folks have for the Rouget Cros Parantoux from 1989 onwards.
The Rouget Echezeaux is a bit less consistent with the Jayer brothers’ bottlings, as Emmanuel Rouget would blend each Echezeaux together to make a single cuvee to be sold under his own label, and consequently was a little bit more anonymous in terms of terroir than any of its constituent components that went into the blend. Over the years I had also become less of a fan of Monsieur Rouget’s bottling of Cros Parantoux- even in the years from 1989 to 1995 when for all intents and purposes it started out life identical with Henri Jayer’s bottling, as M. Rouget simply gethered up the barrels at his uncle’s cellars and took them to his own cellars for the elevage and bottling. But these were not the best of years for Emmanuel Rouget, and I would be very surprised if the elevage of his barrels was as meticulous as his uncle’s in those days, and I have always been under the impression that his Cros Parantoux gave up quite a bit of its potential in barrel before it made it into bottle in his cellars. But I have not had the 1995 Rouget Cros Parantoux in many years (that Alan mentions in his post as being so good), so perhaps I have just been unlucky with the vintages of Rouget Cros Parantoux that I have tasted of late.
Best,
John
John – Like Alan, I’m a big fan of Rouget’s 1995 Cros Parantoux, and his 1996, as well. I think there was some inconsistency for a few years after that (1999, while still quite good, suffered some, I thought, from very high yields and 2004 was problematic with big losses due to oïdium). The last few vintages, I’ve thought, have been really excellent – just what one would hope for (well, except for price).
Excellent note, and it managed to give me chills again, remembering back to the out-of-body experience I had tasting my first Jayer Cros Parantoux, a '90.
It surprises me, too, that Mugnier lovers wouldn’t know about Freddy’s success in 1998; Tanzer went crazy over that wine and, based on that review, I ponied up the $80/bottle to find that one, too. It’s great, but needs 10 more years–or 20, perhaps.
As an aside, nice to see and read you on this board, John. Come out here again, John, and I’ll find a bottle of that 1995 Rouget Cros to open. Last time I saw you, it was at that H. Bonneau dinner probably 10 years ago–drinking that Chateauneuf du Pape stuff.
alan
Hi Alan,
Thank you for the invite and we will definitely get together the next time I am in OC. Glad to hear you remember the Bonneau dinner, as that was a great tasting and given all the heat I get in certain circles about not understanding Chateauneuf, it is nice to have a witness around. In regards to the Rouget CP, I have to say that I have fallen out of the loop with what is going on here, as I lost faith in M. Rouget on two accounts a few years ago and have not been to the domaine subsequently. One was what I felt were really pretty mediocre wines in 1996, 1997, 1998 and 1999- after which I gave up on the estate, assuming if one could not get it right in '96, '98 and '99, there simply was no hope. Also, I went to a large Cros Parantoux tasting a few years back in NY, where the Rouget Cros bottlings that I had loved out of the blocks: 1989, 1990, 1991 and 1993, all showed pretty poorly. The wines were starting to dry out a bit and get quite “tomatoey” (for lack of a better term), and I was extremely disappointed in how they showed. Given that the Meo and Henri Jayer Cros Parantoux bottlings from the same vintages were spectacular, I came to the conclusion that this was not a domaine for me. But I would be happy to taste the '95 CP, and I guess it is time to wander by the estate and see what is going on, because IME if Claude says good things are going on there, it is usually the case.
Best,
John
I can offer you the 1996 if you’re out here in the Bay Area, John, and the 1998 Echézeaux, which is quite fine, too. It’s interesting what you say about the tomatoey aspect – I’ve never experienced that in Rouget’s wines, but I did in Jayer’s 1978 Cros Parantoux in the early 1990s. I’ve not had the wine since, but although others I know had the same experience with the wine at about that time; more recent notes I’ve come across have not mentioned it. I wonder if it is a transitional phase?
Hi Claude,
I had never thought that the tomatoes might have just been a transitory phase, and I suppose that this could certanly be the case. Certainly none of those wines showed any signs of that condition when released, but it was strikingly evident at the tasting- as well as a coarseness on the palate that was a bit more Cotes du Rhone-like than Cros Parantoux. I have not been back to the wines subsequently, and sold off all my Rouget in the wake of their really indifferent showings at this big tasting (including the lion’s share of a box of Cros Parantoux '96). Subsequent bottles I have tasted were only of the '98 and '99 Cros Parantoux- neither of which impressed me- and I have not been pursuing the wines since that time. But your differing experience has me curious again, and I would be delighted to bring something appropriate along to accompany your '96 the next time I am in the area.
All the Best,
John