Yapp Travel

An invitation to speak at the New Zealand Syrah Symposium in Hawke's Bay at the tail end of January was too tempting to resist. It was with a keen sense of anticipation that I packed summer clothes and headed off for the 'Land of the Long White Cloud'. I also packed 25 bottles of iconic […]

Somewhat to our chagrin it is Bordeaux that sets the public perception of whether a vintage is good, bad or indifferent. This isn't a major problem in vintages like 1990 or 2005, which were excellent in Bordeaux and most of the rest of France but in can be frustrating in years that weren't so good […]

If you should find yourselves in the midst of the Médoc, in the village of Lamarque, waiting for a ferry to cross the Gironde to Blaye you could do worse than while away an hour or two on the terrace of L'Escale - a refreshingly basic restaurant that is the best place to dine hereabouts. […]

My father-in-law is the proud owner of a rural retreat in the wilds of Périgord and so most summers, from a combination of financial, social and gastronomic incentives, we end up spending a week or two lost in La France Profonde far from the digital distractions of the Modern Age. Family tradition has it that […]

On a recent holiday to the United States, I had the opportunity to visit the Napa Valley where wine has been produced, in what many consider as America's premium wine country, for over 150 years. The first commercial winery in Napa was established in 1861. An early boom and growth in vineyards was curtailed with […]

9.00am on Monday 20th July and I found myself sweeping through the most northerly outpost of the named Côtes du Rhône Villages, Rousset-les-Vignes. Eighteen villages are entitled to add their 'handle' to the Côtes du Rhône Villages moniker, marking them out as superior to generic Côtes du Rhône. As I swept past gnarled vines and lavender fields I […]

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 […]

On Day 3, we were up and at ‘em with a climat by climat barrel-tasting of the 2007 Hermitage at the Rhône valley’s most prestigious address – Domaine Jean-Louis Chave in the village of Mauves. The Chaves farm just under 14 of Hermitages precious 131 hectares and have an unbroken ‘de père en fils’ lineage […]

On Day 2 of our Rhône trip, we schlepped north to Côte-Rôtie for a protracted barrel tasting with our old chum Patrick Jasmin. Harvesting here was a tough job in 2008 and Patrick had to pick his grapes in 3 different stages to obtain optimum ripeness. An early sampling of Patrick’s 2008 revealed a lightish, […]

On April 20th my co-director Tom Ashworth and I embarked on a whistle-stop tour of the Rhône valley in the august company of the Weekend Telegraph’s globe-trotting wine-hound Jonathan Ray. The aim of the trip was to get a broad overview of both the Northern and Southern Rhône and an insight into recent vintages and […]