Does the name Stuart Sutcliffe mean anything to you? He was the “fifth Beatle”—an art school chum of John Lennon’s who played bass with The Beatles before they blew up, and he has a kindred spirit, of sorts, in vigneron Yvon Métras.
Widely regarded as the fifth member of the lionized Beaujolais “Gang of Four” (Marcel Lapierre; Jean Foillard; Jean-Paul Thévenet; Guy Breton), Métras is not as famous as the others, although that appears to be by choice: He dislikes the bureaucratic hassles of exporting wines to the US, so he doesn’t have an ‘official’ US importer; even in France, his wines are difficult to find. And while Stuart Sutcliffe was a historical footnote, Métras—who, like the “Gang of Four,” is a disciple of natural winemaking pioneer Jules Chauvet—is a vitally important name to know in Beaujolais. Sourcing pure, perfectly ripe Gamay from exceptionally old, hand-farmed vines in Fleurie, Métras is as “natural” as they come, eschewing chemical inputs in the vineyards and the cellar. Today’s wine, while carrying the catchall ‘Beaujolais’ designation, is nevertheless the furthest thing from generic: It comes from 100+-year-old vines on the edge of Fleurie and comes as close as any Cru Beaujolais does to blurring—if not erasing altogether—the line between Gamay and top-tier Burgundian Pinot Noir. We only got a few cases, from the celebrated 2015 vintage no less, so I expect it to disappear quickly. If you’re receiving this email, consider it a “thank you” from all of us at SommSelect for your support. We’re thrilled to share this extremely rare gem with you!
Information about Métras, like the Métras wines themselves, is not easy to come by. His is a resolutely farmstead-scale operation, spanning about six hectares of vines ranging in age from 20 to 120—yes, 120—years old. The vines that supply today’s wine, as indicated in small print on the label, are from a plot near the winery called “Grille-Midi” (translating to “grilled at midday”); arranged in haphazard rows and trained bush-style, these gnarled old vines are thought to date to the 1890s and produce exceptionally small berries, with a grueling manual plowing regimen employed in place of herbicides (these are steep-sloped sites that include parcels on the famed “La Madone” hill, and are pretty treacherous to traverse by tractor). Situated near a small hamlet called Vauxrenard, a few kilometers west of Fleurie proper, the vines root in the classic pink granite of this celebrated cru village. Like his Chauvet-influenced contemporaries, Métras employs a ‘semi-carbonic’ maceration, often extending the length of time the wine spends on its skins well past that of his peers, and employs only ambient yeasts to initiate fermentation. No sulfur is added during fermentation and the wines are aged in used oak barrels before bottling without fining or filtration.
As we’ve noted here previously, we’ve found 2015 Beaujolais to be a hit-or-miss vintage, with many wines showing the effects—namely, excessive richness and a lack of varietal typicity—of this very warm year. This, as you might have guessed by now, is one of the hits: In the glass, it’s a deep ruby moving to magenta/pink at the rim, with an earthy, slightly animal note right out of the gate that dissipates quickly with air and gives way to a rush of dark wild berries, black plum, black and red currant, cracked black pepper, purple flowers, dried herbs, and crushed stones. The freshness and lift of this wine is atypical for the vintage, and that’s precisely what we love about it—it’s another wine that seems to lend credence to the idea that older vines have a regulating effect on the final product. Medium-plus in body but marked by freshness and a dry, spicy finish, its low-sulfur regimen during production may cause it to smell ‘reductive’ (i.e. slightly funky due to being oxygen-starved) right out of the bottle. I can’t stress enough how beneficial 30-60 minutes of air in a decanter are to this wine. Transformational, even. The juice inside this bottle is alive, after all, and once it’s had the chance to wake up, it explodes forth with beautifully pure fruit, spice, and vibrancy. If tasting it blind, thinking it was Premier Cru Pinot Noir from the Côte de Beaune would not be embarrassing in the least. Be sure to hold on to at least one of the few bottles you have and re-visit it 5-7 years down the line. This wine at its peak will be nothing short of profound. Pair it with something bistro-esque like the attached recipe for sausage and lentil stem. Earthy, authentic, delicious. Cheers!
