Yvon Metras

Yvon Métras has roots (several-generations deep) in the Beaujolais wine farms and he began to vinify his first wines in the family domaine in 1988, but in the early years he was mostly selling his grapes to the coopérative. It was in 1988 when he made his first natural wine. At that time it was experimental and he did not sell the bottles made this way, he drank them. The first commercial sulphite-free wine made by Métras was the 1994 vintage.

Influenced by Marcel Lapierre, Yvon Métras changed his winemaking/growing practices and joined the vibrant group of natural winemakers who were only 5 at the time. He is one of the gang of five pioneering natural winegrowers in the Beaujolais (along with Thevenet, Lapierre, Foillard and Guy Breton), he counts Jules Chauvet, Pierre Overnoy as his inspirations. They were the first in Beaujolais, making wines without the modern corrections, without the lab yeast, the chaptalization, the filtration, and foremost without added sulfites, somehow returning to the wines that were made centuries ago, but with a more scientific precision and understanding of all the winemaking processes, when in the past the empirical approach transmitted by the elders brought random results of uneven quality.

The wines of Yvon Métras are not always easy to get, especially abroad where the demand is bigger than the alloted volumes of the importers, you must remember that his vineyard surface is particularly modest.

The domaine is located a kilometer or two from the village of Fleurie.
Yvon Métras' production is very scarce, it cultivates just under 6 hectares of vines, the old farm has 35 hectares of land. When he bought it, it was not a land of wine, but had been abandoned after the war and was unorganized. Before, he had lived in Moulin-à-Vent, then in Fleurie, but he comments that he has found his final destination.
In 1850, the winery had about 400 hectares, with 30-50 hectares planted with vines. Métras is trying to recover polyculture on his farm and, to begin with, he now raises sheep, which roam the vineyards in winter. Overall, Yvon says he has 5.5 hectares of vineyards and his son Jules Metras, who started in 2014, has 3 hectares.
Yvon Métras is recognized as one of the best producers in the region, if not the best, having the highest recognition in the region.