2014 Yvon Métras Beaujolais- France, Burgundy, Beaujolais (8/16/2018)
Metras wines can be a bit funky. A crapshoot some might say. They can bretty, seemingly dirty wines. They can also show varying degrees of those attributes with bright, crunchy and pure fruit. You need to let them breathe a little. There is definitely some funk here, but air it for 30 minutes and come back to trippy red fruit berries and and bit of animale. This is an easy drinker, there isn’t a ton of mid-palate pressure. It’s not complex. It’s just crushable red fruit fun. But there is a wild side to this. I wouldn’t call it clean. Served slightly cool, as I like to do with these, it was quite nice on a hot night.
They can be really brilliant. Pure, crunchy-red fruited- ultimate expression of Gamay. And a natural, wild-side that tends to permeate.
Over-hyped (hipster and biodynamie crowd) and over-priced? Probably.
I love sound bottles, especially Fleuries and MAV, and I’ve had plenty good bottles. Some really crappy ones as well.
I’ve only had a few but agree with Dennis. I remember my first. I poured a glass and thought WTF it’s a rose. But it had a depth of flavor that one will never get from a Rose. It was light and full flavored at the same time. I was smitten. The few bottles since haven’t had the same wow factor. Good but lacked that something special. And at that price point with the variability I only buy a few. But I still buy based on that first bottle.
Wines of distinction. I think Metras is excellent across the board, I love them. They are not like your regular 'ole Beaujolais. They are like Levet to Cote Rotie, Sociando to Bordeaux, Renaissance to Cali Cab, Lenoir to Loire Cab Franc. Not everyone will love them or appreciate them for what they are, and that is fine. They are well priced for what they offer me.
I recently had the '15 at a restaurant in the UK and had a hard time detecting any brett, which I find quite offputting normally. Fair to say the risk of brett surfacing increases with time and/or poor handling? Seems like whether the wine was imported with care will affect the quality of the wine we receive stateside.
I agree. Used to buy a decent amount of Lapierre crus some years ago; but eventually stopped. Since then, I’d “forgotten” about Beaujolais; that is, until a couple of weeks ago. At a wine dinner hosted by a Singaporean supplier, I got my first try of Métras’ Fleurie; and it was an eye-opener. I definitely will buy some.
cracked my first of 2 of these last night and really enjoyed it. drank at cellar temp, showed bright red fruit and your description of crunchy is exactly what i said last night when describing it. probably won’t sit on my other bottle for very long.
Joe- Thanks for resurrecting this old thread, and glad you had a good bottle. This makes me miss the old days of drinking Metras. My regular source closed up a couple of years ago and I don’t really seek the wines out anymore, so this is a nice trip down memory lane.
Cheers!
![[cheers.gif]](/uploads/db3686/original/2X/0/0ff9bfcdb0964982cd3240b6159868fbdf215b1a.gif "cheers"){kind=small}
