(Due late 2025)
Jean Michel-Guillon, protégé of the legendary Henri Jayer, produces some of the most detailed, nuanced, perfumed and complex burgundies at excellent prices, we could not be more excited about the impending landing of these great wines.
Why were the Jayer wines so great and why should you pay attention these JM Guillon wines?
Jayer himself learnt during his career that if the grapes were ripe and in perfect health, and were hand-picked from old or mature vines with low yields, then he could use 100% new oak to give a little more tannin and keep more freshness and purity with a greatly reduced risk of Brettanomyces or other spoilage microflora. If the wines showed a little oak in their youth it was ok - it would integrate and disappear in a short while. He was a staunch 100% de-stemming advocate, and of course the oak he used had to be the very best. Nobody ever says “Oh that DRC, Dujac or Rousseau wine has too much oak”, and their best ones have 100%.
Well known to Australian Pinot-files, JM Fourrier worked a “stage” with Jayer and he says that Henri and his wife Marcelle worked from 7AM to 7PM in the vines with dedicated passion. This is part of key to greatness.
Founded in 1980, and over the course of two decades, Guillon was mentored by Henri Jayer, learning the precision and discipline that made Jayer’s wines legendary. Guillon’s vines have an average age over 60yo (some are around 100yo) and his yields are very low, even in the regional and villages wines; 38hl/ha is quite high for him.
Today JM Guillon still follows many of the same principles across his 15 hectares of Gevrey-Chambertin, Chambolle-Musigny, and Marsannay. He is firmly placed among Burgundy’s elite and took the title of Winemaker of the Year 2020 from Guide Hachette.
