It’s already 5 years since I profiled the last version of Domaine Chanzy in Bouzeron and time has flown by for this, seemingly, restless domaine of over 30 hectares!
As you may remember, in 2012-2013 Jean Baptiste Jessiaume and his father became responsible for this domaine – just across the road from Domaine de Villaine in Bouzeron. What I hadn’t appreciated at the time was that they had been ‘hired by the owners’ to take responsibility for the winemaking, they were not the actual owners. Jean Baptiste said at the time was that they had bought the domaine as part of a consortium – seemingly then, they must have been minor partners. Subsequently, father and son Jessiaume left Chanzy after the 2019 harvest ‘to concentrate on setting up their own trading company‘ according to the current Chanzy team.
Since January, Max Blondelle is the new cellar-master and winemaker at Domain Chanzy, joining after working for nearly 15 years with Jean Pierre Confuron at Domaine Chanson. It will be too early to taste any major change of approach, but I anyway plan to visit Max in November when looking at 2019s. This has been a great source of well-made wine from the Côte Chalonnais, though also rather expensive for their appellations. The labels have had a workover – amongst other things, not surprisingly, removing the name of JB Jessiaume, above…
There is one response to “all change, domaine chanzy…”
Jean-Baptiste Jessiaume opened his own business – négociant-vinificateur, in other words a winemaker that works with vineyard owners, directs how to grow the grapes, and harvests and makes the wine.
And he actually worked at Chanzy with his uncle Pascal, not his father (Marc).
Dear Michael
My thanks for your comment – it was a long time ago but it was the person I met at Chanzy who described them as ‘father and son.’ But I’m glad he’s (JB) keeping busy – he was clearly talented…
Haha – that would be a dream for 99.9% of négociant-vinificateurs 🙂