Why Did a Family Give Away Half Its Harvest for Decades, Even Though the Vineyards Were Its Own? — Méo-Camuzet

A family based in the village of Vosne-Romanée owned vineyards across the Côte de Nuits. Yet for most of the twentieth century, it was not a member of the family who actually worked those vineyards. The land was entrusted to outside growers, who received half the harvest in return. The family’s name was Camuzet, and later Méo-Camuzet. Why, for so long, did a family that owned its own vineyards not work them itself?

A Politician Who Gathered Vineyards, and Never Lived Among Them

Étienne Camuzet (1867–1946) was a grower born in the village of Vosne-Romanée, who served as mayor of the village from 1900 to 1929 and as a member of the National Assembly for Côte-d’Or from 1902 to 1932 — more than thirty years in public office altogether. He also expanded his activity as a grower, selecting and buying up vineyards in and around the village. In 1920, he acquired the Château du Clos de Vougeot as well. Yet he himself never lived there. What he used the building for was housing the tenant farmers who looked after his vineyards.

To a Daughter, Then a Nephew — A Family Facing Paris

When Camuzet died in 1946, his vineyards passed to his daughter, Maria Noirot. She, too, continued to entrust the land to the tenant farmers her father had relied on. When Maria Noirot died in 1959, the estate passed to her nephew, Jean Méo. Jean Méo was a Paris-based figure who, after training as a mining engineer, is said to have joined the cabinet of General de Gaulle before going on to hold management positions at several large companies. Based far from the vineyards, he entrusted the family’s land, from 1959 to 1984, to four tenant farmers — Jean Faurois, Jacques Faurois, Jean Tardy, and Henri Jayer. Under métayage — an arrangement in which the tenant kept half the harvest in return for working the land — the four men each tended their own parcels. In 1981, the domaine’s name was changed from “Camuzet” to “Méo-Camuzet,” and in 1983 the first wine to carry that name was released.

A Young Heir, Educated in Paris and America

In 1984, Jean Méo told his son Jean-Nicolas — then twenty years old and a student at the ESCP business school in Paris — that he would one day take over the vineyards. Jean-Nicolas did not return to the estate right away; he continued his studies, going on to study oenology at the University of Burgundy and spending a year in the United States at the University of Pennsylvania. It was in 1989 that he finally settled in Vosne-Romanée.

What a Retiring Tenant Farmer Passed On to the Young Heir

By 1989, when Jean-Nicolas Méo returned, Henri Jayer, one of the tenant farmers, was already heading toward retirement. Even so, the domaine says, Jayer agreed to pass on his own winemaking craft to the young heir. For some years afterward, Jayer continued to teach at Jean-Nicolas’s side — accounts differ on exactly how long, but they agree that the relationship was closest in the early years. The vineyards returned to the family’s hands little by little, and by 2008 the last of the tenant farmers had retired; from then on, Jean-Nicolas cultivated the entire estate directly.

From the time Jean Méo inherited the vineyards after Maria Noirot’s death to the day the land came to be worked by the family alone once again, roughly half a century had passed. The craft that made that return possible had been carried by growers from outside the family.

Three Facts Worth Knowing

• The family owned its vineyards, yet for a long time did not work them itself. From 1959 to 1984, Jean Méo entrusted the land under métayage to four tenant farmers — Jean Faurois, Jacques Faurois, Jean Tardy, and Henri Jayer.
• In 1989, the young heir Jean-Nicolas Méo, educated in Paris and America, settled in Vosne-Romanée. Henri Jayer, one of the tenant farmers and by then heading toward retirement, is said to have passed on his winemaking craft to him.
• It took roughly half a century, from Jean Méo’s inheriting the vineyards after Maria Noirot’s death to the family working every parcel with its own hands. By 2008, the last tenant farmers had retired and the land had returned fully to the family.

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