Wine Tasting & Events

It’s a tough job but someone’s got to do it! One of the rewards of having a gastronomically obsessed father is a bi-annual block booking for 100 lunch covers at Le Gavroche. Commendably, this peerless temple of high cuisine refuses to partner a dish with a wine that they haven’t previously road-tested and yesterday was […]

Back in July we blogged on this site about how pleased we were to be nominated in the prestigious International Wine Challenge Awards 2010. After much anticipation, we are delighted to announce that Yapp Brothers won two awards on the night - Rhône Specialist Wine Merchant of the Year, and Loire Specialist Wine Merchant of […]

Here at Yapp Brothers we love our staff tastings but it is sometimes, in these days of multi-tasking and role covering, quite difficult to muster a respectable turn out. However last Friday was one opportunity when most of the Yapp team were present in Mere, so we made full use of the time to further […]

Earlier this year there were attempts within the UK wine trade to ‘talk up’ the 2008 Rhône vintage – as noted on our blog entry on March 10th. Although some perfectly decent wines were made in the Rhône valley in 2008 it was not an outstanding vintage. Fortunately as our vineyard visits and tastings to […]

We were thrilled to win Decanter magazine’s coveted Specialist Merchant award last autumn and we must be getting something right here at Yapp Brothers because we have been nominated for awards in no fewer than 4 categories in the forthcoming International Wine Challenge 2010: Rhône Wine Merchant of the Year, Loire Wine Merchant of the […]

While Fred Filliatreau was over visiting last month, we had the pleasure of a staff tasting at Mere of six of his wines from recent vintages all of which were showing really well. We're not the only ones to think so judging from the recent press accolades for Cuvée Domaine Filliatreau 2008 and Vieilles Vignes […]

Designed by Inigo Jones for James I and being the last building that Charles I walked through to his execution on the scaffold outside, Whitehall's Banqueting House is steeped in history. The surroundings of the Main Hall are truly majestic, with a Rubens painted ceiling looking down over proceedings below it is perhaps apt that […]

At the tail end of February, Tom and I were privileged to take up an invitation to visit the Chave family at their H.Q. in the village of Mauves to taste barrel samples of forthcoming vintages and catch up with developments at this historic estate that has an unbroken father to son lineage dating back […]

There's always on-going discussions about which wines are showing well any many a recommendation to take on-board but I took a more systematic approach after been identified as a "Southern Man" by our Shop Manger - which I think this means that I have a preference for Southern Wines and nothing to do with anything […]

Last week, we were blessed with a whistle-stop visit from our old friend Crozes Hermitage maestro Alain Graillot and his charming wife (and administrative guru) Elisabeth. Alain graciously agreed to talk us through a flight of his wines and elaborate on his wine making philosophy as well as fielding questions from our inquisitive team in […]