Jonathan Hoad

  Last Saturday saw the great, and the very good indeed, on display at the Saatchi Gallery in London when the Robert Parker Matter of Taste road-show came to town. This event featured over 200 wines from around the world, the ‘only’ requirement for entry being that they needed to have scored 90 or more […]

Bright eyed and bushy tailed after a good night’s kip we were now ready for the Northern part of our Rhône foray. First stop was a visit to long-standing Yapp supplier and Rhône ‘royalty’ Jean-Louis & Erin Chave. On the way we dropped into the 4 hectare Clos Florentin vineyard which is where the Chave’s […]

  By the time we arrived in Châteauneuf-du-Pape on Monday, morning mists were clearing to reveal a vista of vines in golden Autumn sunshine. Our first port of call was at Le Vieux Donjon where a smiling Claire Michel told us she was relieved to have completed the complicated 2014 harvest. Hot on the heels […]

Ron & Elva Laughton of the legendary Jasper Hill Winery in Heathcote, South Australia, both delighted and surprised us with their arrival in the UK the other day. They revealed that the reason for the secrecy was that they were celebrating their wedding anniversary and Christmas with a European tour and to quote ‘didn’t want […]

One of the constant delights of London living is that no matter how long you have lived there you are always discovering ‘new’ places to visit and things to do in areas that you thought you already knew inside out. I had such an occasion last Saturday when I was looking for a suitable restaurant […]

Last weekend, myself and three colleagues had the great honour of being invited to Champagne to visit Gilles Dumangin (our man in Champagne) for the dual celebration of his 40th Birthday and 10th Anniversary of taking over the reins of the family business from his father, Jacky, at J.Dumangin Fils. Although I have been lucky […]

In a time when the successful super-injunction may become a thing of the past, I have decided to out myself as a founding member of a secretive event that is South East London Egg Day (aka SELED). SELED  has been running for the past 6 years in various secret locations. Originally founded by two yolk […]

The start of our trade event season for 2011 began this week with our hosting a stand at The Specialist Importers Trade Tasting event (SITT) 2011 in Manchester (Monday) and London (Wednesday). We have worked at this event for the past couple of years and watched it grow into an already much talked about interesting […]

It is a testament to how busy we have been over the past twelve months that the night for our staff Christmas Party appeared to come round again so quickly after last year’s great evening at the Museum Inn, Farnham. This time our Yapp car convoy was heading into Frome and the newly-opened Archangel. It […]

We recently hosted a Trade tasting to launch our release of 'archive' vintage wines. Held at the Zetter Hotel, one of our long-standing on-trade accounts in Clerkenwell, London; this event provided our trade customers the opportunity to get together to sample some terrific older vintages as well as a selection from our current wine portfolio. […]