2020 Yvon Métras Fleurie - France, Burgundy, Beaujolais, Fleurie (10/28/2024)
– popped and poured –
– tasted non-blind over 1.25 hrs during Dodgers WS game –
NOSE: smells a touch carbonic; dark red berries and some XMas spice.
BODY: medium-light bodied.
TASTE: cherries, with light mint; a touch bretty, but it’s not overbearing. This did not come across as natty. Overall, liked it a lot, but likely will not rebuy on account of a pretty bad Flawed rate with Metras wines.
Brian,
I hear you, brother. I had got caught up in the Metras hysteria and bought a few bottles of the 16 and 17 Fleurie and a couple of the 17 Printemps (even a mag). I have a 50% success rate and that’s just not high enough to justify buying more bottles. The good bottles were super fun to drink, though, and that makes the no re-buy decision a tough one!
I don’t think I suffered the same flaw rate as you guys did, but then of course, I also have a yak palate. For me, it was more the pricing relative to the peer group. When they are on, they certainly are delicious, however.
Yyyyyep. Frustrating, for sure. At a lower price point, I’d ride the rollercoaster. But $70+ Gamay is too rich for me to ride that ride. Hope you’re well, Jared! 
I hear you! The Metras Roulette is a painful game. I lowered my shopping from a case of each cuvee to 3 bottles of each a year. Cote du Py from Foillard is 25€ but Metras is around 46€, so it’s definitely more painful at that rate.
You got that right … and especially so for me, as Foillard’s Cote du Py is pretty much the Beaujolais against which I compare all others.
Had a bunch of mousey bottles and also stopped buying…
I was recently served a stunning magnum of 2009 Fleurie, which made me reflect on how much more reliable some of these more competent natty producers used to be before the string of really extreme vintages that set in from 2015 on in the Beaujolais.
William, what would you think is the difference between Foillard and Metras? From what I can read online, it seems both use a tiny bit of sulfites, but even in the most extreme cases, Foillard’s wines seem somewhat cleaner.
The 2014 Metras L’Ultime was gorgeous. Somehow I lucked out with three bottles but they are harder to source now. And yikes, lowest price in US is $289 for the 2018. Not a fan of that vintage, or that price!
I’ve only had older vintages (pre-2015) of Metras…and my rate of failure is 1 of 18. So not what others seem to be experiencing…but the few bottles that I had were benchmark wines for me from the villages ( Moulin-à-Vent & Fleurie L’Ultime). I just can’t justify the prices they’re commanding at this point as it’s kind of silly…
I don’t think that experience pre-2015 is incompatible with others’ post-2015 experience…
At their best, Métras’ are more ethereal and perfumed… perhaps because of that, any fault stands out more conspicuously? The Foillards are perhaps a bit more pragmatic, and have a bigger production volume if they want to declassify or bulk out anything? Ultimately, these are speculative answers, as on paper you’re correct that they work in similar ways (low temperature carbonic maceration, élevage in used barrels).
Would be interested in where you’d place Lapierre in there. I really enjoyed visiting them 18 months ago. The chance to try their Sans Soufre version vs the standard cuvée was fascinating. So much fresher and more vibrant in its youth. But a bottle of the 2017 sans soufre was decidedly natty (though not mousey thankfully).
But overall, I think I like them even more than Foillard, especially the cuvee Marcel, though both are great producers.
Lapierre SS is great stuff. Takes the basic bottle to another level, so fresh and transparent and lifted.
It’s probably just me, but I had them side by side and the N version wasn’t necessarily superior. Both of them were fine in their own right, as always.
Yes - that was my take too. I was with two others who are not full-fledged wine nerds (ie know what they like…) and they both picked the SS very easily, with the same comments on vibrancy. Interesting to see the comparison with the older bottle - what you gain in youth, perhaps you risk once it ages? Just my one data point, of course.
welcome to the forums Ben…thank you for sharing.
Thanks - really finding the site interesting.
Metras wines with some age can be very wonderful in many ways.
Ye olde TNs here: