Henri Jayer – genuine or fake – the old label

Henri Jayer (1922 – 2006) is one of the most legendary producers in Burgundy … the prices are therefore very high and there are a lot of fake bottles on the market. Buying Jayer is therefore a game of trust, knowledge and a lot of money.

I have done a bit of research on Jayer recently and found some interesting information about the Jayer labels used in the 1960s and early 1970s … the story about the forgotten label.

The Sotheby Richebourg 1970

During my work uncovering fake Jayer wines … namely Richebourg 1959, 1962 and 1964 I discovered an old Jayer label from an auction conducted by Sothebys in July 2013.

The wine auctioned was a Henri Jayer Richebourg 1970 – a lot (147) with 11 bottles – with a label that looked very much different than the classic Jayer label known by many collectors – both from the estate bottlings and the Caves Dessilly bottlings.

The label include a map of Cote de Nuits … and producer information – indicating it’s a domaine bottled Jayer wine – see picture below – from the Sotheby auction.

The bottle was verified and sold by Sothebys … price 72.850 GBP on the hammer including buyers premium on the 17th of July 2013 – read more on Sothebys homepage.

The unknown label … verified?

The Sotheby verification is a pretty strong evidence of the bottle being genuine, and I began to find more information about this label.

It turns out that a good friend of mine found two bottle Richebourg 1971 from Henri Jayer with this label back in 2006. He was naturally suspicious and contacted Henri Jayer – just a few month before he passed away – to verify the combination of this label on a Richebourg 1971. Jayer confirmed that he had in fact used this label in 1971, and that the bottle could well be a genuine Jayer Richebourg 1971.

This is further evidence that this label have in fact been used by Henri Jayer … at least until 1971.

More old Jayers with the mysterious label

I then began to search for more old labels, and found this type of label on Jayer wines dating back to the vintage 1954 – presumably the oldest Jayer wine I have ever seen.

I have seen the label used on several vintages from 1954 to 1970, thus indicating that Jayer must have used this label for quite some time – if these bottles are genuine – the label pictures below are taken from the Belgium auction house – Sylivies Wine Auctions.

The research show no evidence of this label being used after 1971, so most likely Jayer changed to the well known classic Jayer label in 1972 or 1973.

It’s however an open question when Henri Jayer began to use this label. First of all some of the old bottles found with these labels could be fake, secondly the 1954 could have been labeled in 1971 with this label … so it doesn’t really give any information about the Jayer label used in the early 1960s where the vintages 1959, 1962 and 1964 was put on the market.

With this information it does however seem somewhat unlikely that Jayer used the classic well known label in the 1950s and early 1960s … and the changed to the “mysterious” label for a few years and then changed back to the classic label.

Implications

If this label and or other unknown labels were used on Henri Jayer wines in the 1950s and 1960s, then the authenticity of the many estate bottled wines with the classic label from the vintages 1959, 1962 and 1964 is even more problematic.

If Jayer used other labels until 1971, then all these bottles must be late releases and sold from the Domaine after 1971 …. more than 10 years after the harvest in 1959.

Henri Jayer only estate bottled a small proportion of the production before 1976, and therefore the number of bottles reserved for late release … 10 years after the vintage must have been very limited indeed.

Another question is why there are so many Cave Dessilly bottlings from the late 1950s and 1960s with a label that look like the classic Jayer label. Kind of strange if Jayer himself used another label … the most logical explanation is again late release.

Help me find more information

If you know more about the Jayer labels please contact me, and if you have useful pictures of other old Jayer bottles please send then to me.

Please note I have no reason to think that the bottles shown on the pictures from Sylvies Auction House are fake or fraudulent in any way – on the contrary they look more like 50 year old wines – than some of the pristine bottles sold on other auctions. They pictures are merely shown to get some documentation for the use of this label on different old vintages of Henri Jayer.

Will continue the research … stay tuned!

Related articles

• The Henri Jayer Insight – Cros Parantoux the area and production
  The legendary 1er cru Vosne-Romanée Cros Parantoux was introduced by Henri Jayer in 1978 – before this the wine from this now famous vineyard was included in the Vosne-Romanée village of Domaine Henri Jayer. In connection with the Baghera/Wine auction of wines from the Henri Jayer domaine cellar held on June 17th 2018 new informations and ...
• Henri Jayer Insight – The production in the 1978 vintage
  On June 17th 2018 an amazing 855 bottles and 209 magnums of Henri Jayer Burgundies were on auction in Geneva. The auction is held by Baghera/Wine and the wines comes directly from the cellar of the former Henri Jayer estate in Vosne-Romanée – as the sellers are the daughters of the legendary Henri Jayer. The ...
• Last chance to get a genuine bottle of Henri Jayer?
  855 bottles of Henri Jayer + 209 magnums of Henri Jayer – too good to be true – actually not. The daughters of Henri Jayer – Lydie and Dominique Jayer – have put the remaining wine collection of the former Henri Jayer estate on auction in Geneva. The auction is held by Baghera/Wines who have worked intensely ...
• Terroir Insight: Henri Jayer Richebourg
  One of the most legendary wines in the world is the mighty Richebourg from Henri Jayer – extremely rare and very expensive … and sadly with a lot of fake bottles dominating the market these days. The Jayer Richebourg was made from the Richebourg holdings of the current Domaine Meo-Camuzet over a period of more than ...
• Cros Parantoux – the sweet spot of Richebourg
  Vosne-Romanee Cros Parantoux is a mythical vineyard … with a reputation created by the legendary Henri Jayer. With a location just above and next to Richebourg this 1er cru is regarded as something very special. But the story of Cros Parantoux doesn’t start with Henri Jayer, the vineyard was known much earlier. So lets take a ...