Why Did It Take Him Nearly Twenty Years to Turn a Stony Plot of Jerusalem Artichokes Back Into a Vineyard? — Henri Jayer

Walking up the slope in the village of Vosne-Romanée, just above the Grand Cru vineyard of Richebourg, lies a small plot called Cros Parantoux. It is a stony patch of ground that, at first glance, looks like no great gift of land. Yet around the time of the Second World War, not a single vine stood here. The vineyard had been abandoned, and in its place grew Jerusalem artichokes.

It was Henri Jayer (1922–2006), a grower born in Vosne-Romanée, who bought up this plot piece by piece and broke up its rock to return it to vine. He acquired his first parcel here in the early 1950s. It would be nearly a quarter of a century before he released a wine carrying this plot’s name alone. Why did it take him so long? The answer goes back to something that happened when he was still a teenager.

The Year His Brothers Went to War

Henri Jayer was born in 1922 into a modest vine-growing family in Vosne-Romanée, said to be the youngest of three children. His father is said to have been a small grower with a few plots in and around the village.

When France entered the war in 1939, his two older brothers were called up for military service. Still in his teens, Henri left school to take over his father’s vineyard work in their place. He is also said to have studied oenology at the University of Dijon around this period. By the 1950s, working with roughly three hectares of family land inherited in Échezeaux and Beaux Monts, he began making wine under his own name.

A Stony Plot of Jerusalem Artichokes

The plot that caught his attention lay not far from his own vines, just above Richebourg. Known as Cros Parantoux, it had been abandoned as vineyard land since the phylloxera epidemic of the late nineteenth century. The soil was thin, and hard rock lay beneath it — by most accounts in the village, not worth the effort of clearing. Around the time of the Second World War and the years that followed, what grew here was said to be not vines but vegetables, including Jerusalem artichokes.

Where no one else saw a reason to return, Henri Jayer saw a vineyard.

Twenty Years of Breaking Rock and Buying Land, Piece by Piece

He is said to have acquired his first parcel of Cros Parantoux in 1951, and to have begun clearing and replanting it in 1953. Dynamite is reported to have been used to break through the hard rock beneath the soil, though no record has been confirmed of how often or on what scale.

Over the following years, he continued to buy small parcels from various owners. The last is said to have been added around 1970, by which point his holding had grown to roughly seven-tenths of the plot’s total area of about one hectare. Even then, the young vines needed more time before they were ready. It was in 1978 — nearly a quarter of a century after acquiring his first parcel — that he released a wine carrying the Cros Parantoux name alone for the first time.

An Approach That Begins in the Vineyard

What Jayer valued came before any technique in the cellar: work in the vineyard itself. Keeping yields low. Carefully sorting out unripe or damaged grapes. Removing the stems completely. Allowing several days of cold maceration before fermentation. Letting native yeasts do the work rather than adding cultivated ones. Leaving the wine unfiltered. These were methods he refined over many years, and it is said that many growers who came after him would go on to adopt this same way of thinking.

He is said to have been required to step back from vineyard work in the mid-1990s, under the terms of the French pension system. Accounts differ on the exact year of his final vintage, but by most records he had fully withdrawn from the work by the early 2000s. He died in 2006.

The ground that once grew Jerusalem artichokes was returned, by his hands, to the map as a vineyard. And the way of thinking that starts in the vineyard — his way — still lives on in the work of many growers today.

Three Facts Worth Knowing

• Cros Parantoux grew vegetables, including Jerusalem artichokes, around the time of the Second World War. Abandoned as vineyard land since the phylloxera epidemic, it was bought up piece by piece from the 1950s onward by Henri Jayer, who is said to have broken up its rock to replant it.
• He released the first wine carrying this plot’s name alone in 1978 — nearly twenty-five years after acquiring his first parcel there.
• Keeping yields low, sorting fruit rigorously, and putting the work into the vineyard rather than the cellar: this was his approach, and many growers who came after him would go on to adopt it.

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