Jean-Nicolas Méo: Bringing Burgundy to Oregon

To truly understand Pinot Noir, one has to work every day with it. Given that, Jean-Nicolas Méo certainly has greater insight into this unpredictable varietal than almost anyone else today.

Méo, 55, currently manages his family estate, Domaine Méo-Camuzet in Vosne-Romanée in Burgundy, as well as the Nicolas-Jay estate in Oregon’s Willamette Valley, along with his partner Jay Boberg, a music entrepreneur.

Recently Wine-Searcher interviewed Méo to learn his thoughts about several topics including climate change, pricing, comparisons between Oregon and Burgundy, and finally, what gives him the greatest satisfaction in his work.

When you started in 1989, you were fortunate enough to have the insight of Henri Jayer, a legendary vintner from Vosne-Romanée. What do you remember about him?

Henri had his own place so he was not vinifying our wines, but he was coming every day, and said: “You do this and that, modify the temperature here. Tomorrow you will do much of the same, and we’ll see how the situation changes.”

At the end of that harvest, he turned to me and smiled and said, after we had tasted the first wines, and we were happy about it: “You know, it’s not really complicated to make great wines.”

That was a very nice assessment and very simple, and carried a lot of meaning, as it’s not terribly complicated to make great wine. Of course, a number of things can go astray, but you have to be very meticulous before and have a kind of vision of what you want to do in terms of winemaking.

I loved Henri’s style. I loved his approach to wine. He thought that wine should please everyone, and that wine should not be a matter of intellectual debate.

You produce a range of Burgundian wines, from Bourgogne Rouge all the way up to grand crus like Richebourg and Clos de Vougeot. What are the differences in approach with these vineyards and wines?

The answer is simple and nuanced. [In the vineyard] there is no real difference between a Bourgogne Rouge and a grand cru like Richebourg. It’s just that we take more care with Richebourg than with a Bourgogne Rouge. It’s not an exaggeration to say that the vine in Richbourg is nurtured, while we spend less time on the vines for Bourgogne Rouge.

In terms of winemaking, I don’t think there are many differences. Of course, there is much more new wood on Richebourg than on Bourgogne Rouge. The plots of Bourgogne have a character of their own, so the winemaking will be geared more to that character.

Over the years, we’ve learned what to expect from each vineyard – what is its intrinsic character. But we do adapt with this. The Clos Vougeot is a very fine wine. We have natural elegance and distinction in the Clos Vougeot. But it doesn’t have a lot of structure, so we need to reinforce the structure. How do we do that? We do a little bit more extraction, within reason. But it’s important, as every wine, every vineyard, has its character, and we need to adapt, as the canvas is the same.

It seems everyone in the industry complains about the pricing of Burgundian wines. What are your thoughts?

A very simple answer would be that yes, prices of premier cru and grand cru Burgundies are too high. But that would be too hypocritical. We do benefit ourselves from these prices and we do drive the prices high at our level, and that is for sure.

The prices in general in the region have gone up quite a lot because of short and small harvests at the beginning of the decade of the ’10s. Surprisingly, they have not decreased yet for 2017 and 2018. I’m seeing this at the bulk leve,l where prices have stablized. I was hoping they would decrease a little bit because I’m more worried for the prices of Bourgogne Rouge and village wines than for premier cru and grand cru.

I know we’re much more in competition at the village level and I’m worried that we’re going to get cut off by our clientele at that level. I’m hoping that we can at least put these prices on hold but, unfortunately, I’m not seeing that at the moment.

For the premier cru and grand cru, of course, this is a big, worldwide market that is getting larger and it’s a question of supply and demand. We see this and it’s hard not to react and take advantage of it at our level. When your job at the commercial level consists of refusing and turning down 80 percent of the demands that you get, it drives the message that the prices should be a bit higher.

© Nicolas-Jay
| Oregon vineyards like Nysa (pictured) offer different challenges to those of Burgundy.

How has climate change affected your work?

Harvests are much earlier than before. We went through four consecutive warm summers now, but the early part of the decade between 2010 and 2014 was actually quite cold, with 2013 actually being the latest ever harvest.

So it seems to work in phases. It’s not totally consistent with the effect of climate change. Even if the harvests are very much earlier … 2011, 2007, 2017, when you harvested really early in early September, these wines are not really full bodied, warm, sweet, high in alcohol, etc, etc. The reason is that August was quite wet.

So climate change has been good for Burgundy so far. Burgundy was lacking in ripeness from the ’60s to the ’80s and yes, for the past 20 years, we’re much riper than we used to be, and it’s been beneficial for the region. We may reach a point where it goes too far, but there’s not much we can do about it. I’ve always tried to pick at the right moment, where we’re really ripe, but keeping some acidity too.

Are you looking into ways to combat climate change?

I think there are a number of agricultural and viticultural practices that we can slightly modify to help us face climate change and warmer temperatures. We can certainly find and select rootstocks that would give us another week or maybe even two weeks in terms of ripening. It would certainly be very interesting for the future of the wine industry worldwide.