In this day and age, I’m conscious that I am showing my age by the fact that I still use a wrist watch as my main means of telling the time. Younger generations are choosing iphones and such like to keep a track on the hours of the day and I’m sure that when my young children learn to tell the time there may well be a new bit of technology that will help them out. My 5-year-old daughter recently laughed out loud when I showed her a photograph of a record player but  she’ll never know the excitement of buying a 45rpm single, or remember the Jam getting five successive vinyl 45s straight to the converted number one slot.  I digress…

Now, working in the wine trade, I’ve come to realise that I’m marking the passing of time in a different way. Last summer, I’d take a favourite wine almost for granted – my first Yapp favourite being the Lirac 2005: La  Famille Maby. A modest collection at home was soon dispatched and replacements sought – easy. Then, just before Christmas, I went to replenish my supplies only to hear the shocking words from our shop manager “we’ve moved on to the 2007 vintage now”.  Don’t get me wrong, the Lirac 2007 is still a great vintage (as it was for the Rhône generally) but it wasn’t my beloved 2005.

I moved house last week and in all the boxing and packing that goes on I could hear bottles being clinked and wrapped back in the old kitchen and, as well as worrying about my guitars being damaged, I was equally concerned about my last bottles of Lirac 2005, Châteauneuf du Pape: Père Caboche 2004 and Saint Joseph 2007: Domaine Georges Vernay.

So, if there is a moral here, it must be to make sure you appreciate your favourite vintages while you can and have a few put aside for another and not necessarily rainy day – you may want to mark the passing of time with an old friend!

Jasmin over a barrel

If the assembled wine-tasters from Baltimore-based asset management company, T Rowe Price, would rather have been in the park on the finest summer evening this year, they weren’t letting on.  Instead, shoe-horned into an upstairs room in this traditional City boozer, they proved to be a model audience and even threw in some tricky questions – what dictates the size of the bubbles in sparkling wine and is there a correlation with quality?  No, was the answer to the latter when you are talking about bottle-fermented (although the cheapest method of sparkling production which involves pumping C02 through tanked wine will produce large bubbles which will rapidly dissipate).  The Champagne Companion (Michael Edwards, Firefly Book 1999) notes that ‘bubbles should be uniform in shape, lively, and flow in a persistent stream toward the surface of the wine; Experts differ about the ideal size of bubbles. Most Champenois say that the smaller the bubbles, the better the Champagne, but large bubbles are not necessarily the sign of an inferior wine – your palate is a better judge.‘  If any one out there can convincingly improve on this thesis, we’ll send them a bottle of Yapp Champagne!

Highlights of the Rhone wine tasting (it was sparkling Saint Péray that attracted the effervescent debate) were Domaine Georges Vernay’s rare, single-vineyard Condrieu Coteaux du Vernon 2007 (400 cases produced) which was tasted (perhaps unfairly) against the Ardèche co-operative’s generic Viognier (eminently drinkable, but not in the same league) and Patrick Jasmin’s Côte Rôtie 1999.  This was Patrick’s inaugural solo vintage (following the untimely death of his father, Robert the previous year) and it proved to be everything one might hope for in traditional (rather than single-vineyard, super charged) Côte Rôtie – rustic-nosed, medium-bodied, supple, smoky and silky.

We departed into the balmy night and the discreet group never let on whether they managed the assets of a certain Baltimore-based wine critic.

Vernay posing obligingly among her Condrieu vines

Back in March we finally fulfilled a long-held ambition, to order a portion of Quenelle de Brochet au Salpicon de Homard, at Condrieu’s legendary Beau Rivage restaurant, right beside the Rhône in the middle of the town. This is not a venture for the faint-hearted (at 38 euros as a starter) especially if it is accompanied by a decent bottle of Condrieu, which it was – François Merlin’s fragrant, complex and lightly-oaked ‘Les Terroirs’ 2007 (60 euros). Contrary to common conjecture not all of our buying trips involve such profligacy but we had a rendez vous scheduled chez Merlin the following morning and pike quenelles are deemed to be the perfect food accompaniment to Condrieu, so it seemed churlish to deny our destiny. Happily, this did prove to be a divine food and wine combination and we were very kindly disposed towards François before we had even met him.

Our tasting the following morning at François’ modest cellar in the hills above Condrieu was something of a formality in qualitative terms but we were also impressed by his infectious enthusiasm and obvious passion for his métier. François is a first generation wine-maker who paid his dues with stages at Rostaing and Vernay while scraping together the funds to buy several tiny parcels of vines (now totalling 2.2 hectares) which explains the name of his principal bottling – ‘Les Terroirs’. We placed our inaugural order on the spot and judging by initial feedback you have been as enthusiastic about François’ wine as we have.

In April we found ourselves back at Le Beau Rivage (it’s a hard life) in the company of Christine Vernay, her husband Paul Amsellem and the Weekend Telegraph’s tireless wine-hound Jonathan Ray. Christine is Condrieu royalty being head wine-maker and patrone of the appellation’s most celebrated estate but we were unable to sample her wine over lunch as the Beau Rivage had already sold out of its generous allocation.

Fortunately we had been treated to a comprehensive tasting of the entire Vernay canon before lunch including the great value, dry and delicate ‘Pied de Samson’ Vin de Pays Viognier, the mid-weight, and fruit accentuated ‘Terrasses de l’Empire’, the rich, unctuous ‘Chaillées d’Enfer’ and the sublime, mutli-faceted, flagship ‘Coteau de Vernon’, from Condrieu’s prime vineyard in the centre of the appellation. Today Christine has become increasingly recognised as a red wine producer and now bottles a fine, brambly un-oaked Syrah Vin de Pays, as well as full and fruity Saint Joseph and two cuvées of elegant and age-worthy Côte Rôtie. Thankfully on that occasion Christine and Paul picked up the bill but we did repay the gesture later in May when they joined us for lunch in London at Le Gavroche, where we enjoyed the Coteau de Vernon 2007 with a Petit Gratin de Crevettes et Pleurottes. Perhaps we could defray some of our expenses by moonlighting as inspectors for the Guide Michelin!