Wine Tasting & Events

At Yapp Brothers we are blessed with a spacious boardroom which is used for many meetings but few of them are as convivial as last night's dinner for Accenture and Vodafone Business Intelligence. Our old friend Clive Greenhalgh, patron of the Ambassador restaurant, cajoled us into opening our cellars after hours while he set up […]

Every September on the eve of our annual press tasting the principals of the Bunch [www.bunchwines.co.uk] gather to break bread, discuss topics of mutual interest, such as the Ashes, summer holiday destinations and potential new members, and sample some interesting wines. We have been convening thus for many years now so this is a less […]

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 […]

There is a widely held belief that while the red wines of the Northern Rhône will age almost indefinitely the reds of the South don't make old bones. This is a bit of a generalisation and, of course, is rather vintage dependent but it is true that by and large the Syrahs of the Northern […]

A couple of weeks ago, Tom and I convened for an informal bring-a-bottle (actually bottles) lunch at Andrew Edmunds' eponymous restaurant on Lexington Street. While waiting for our guest, Stephen Browett, of fine wine brokers Farr Vintners, we toyed with a bottle of white Corsican vermentino from Domaine Saparale in the 2008 vintage. This is […]

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 […]

At the beginning of March I had the pleasure of hosting an evening dedicated to the wines of Domaine Jean-Louis Chave, an estate widely acknowledged as being at forefront of the Rhône valley’s wine making elite. I was at Le Café Anglais on the invitation of the chef-patron, Rowley Leigh, who is passionate about wine […]

Ronan Sayburn is a long established supporter and friend of Yapp Brothers. Now Head Sommelier at The Greenhouse Restaurant, Mayfair, Ronan has developed an extensive expertise in wine and his years in the business means that his address book reads like a Who's Who of the UK restaurant trade. Every now and then Ronan likes […]

We were delighted when our old friend Clive Greenhalgh the genial patron of the Ambassador restaurant invited us for his 'Magnum Monday' in an effort to inject some cheer into this miserable winter. The remit was simple - rock up at the restaurant with a decent magnum (each) and enjoy a delicious set menu with […]