Yapp Travel

Fortified by a superb dinner at Guy Julien’s truffle-orientated restaurant ‘Le Beaugravière’ in Montdragon (which has a legendary Rhône wine list) we arrived in Châteauneuf-du-Pape on Wednesday morning greeted by a blue sky and southern sunshine. At Le Vieux Donjon Marie-José Michel and her daughter Claire gave us a warm welcome and the happy news […]

(Continuing the voyage down the Rhône valley this week, to catch up with vigneron friends and get an insight into the Rhône 2009 vintage). Domaine Jean-Louis Chave is a key reference point for the entire Rhône valley, and securing an audience with Jean-Louis himself is never easy. Space precludes going into too much detail here, but […]

Tom and I are making a whistle-stop voyage down the Rhône valley this week to catch up with vigneron friends and get an insight into the Rhône 2009 vintage, of which we have heard great promise. After driving south from Lyon in heavy rain on Sunday evening we started tasting bright and early on Monday in […]

It had been a few years since my last visit to Château la Canorgue, one of the most beautifully located wineries that we have the pleasure to work with, so I was somewhat bemused by several of the signs that I met as I wended my way to the cellar door - ‘Beware snakes’, ‘No […]

There can be few more pleasurable ways to spend a September Saturday afternoon than soaking up the sun and sounds at the Stade Aguilera in Biarritz. Fortified by Pascal & Isabelle Labasse’s Bearnais brunch where we feasted on local specialities of cooked Bayonne Ham, Andouille (spicy tripe sausage) and Piperade (tomatoes & chillies), washed down […]

(This post was written by Jonathan Ray, his final article for the Saturday Telegraph, published 2nd October 2010). They breed them tough in France's Sud Ouest. The Pays Basque-Béarn is serious rugby-playing, bullfighting country and, as I discover, serious eating and drinking country, too. I am here with my old mates Jason Yapp and Tom […]

Having had a barnstormer of a break in North Wales in June (The Welsh Connection) we’ve just returned from our last visit up there this year and this time the Yapp machine was fully ‘prepped’ for this 2 week break. Jeremy (the Francophile mentioned in my previous blog) had, probably unbeknown to his family, planned […]

I am always in favour of restaurants doing one thing very well, rather than carrying too many dishes all of which are mediocre. The ‘Restaurant du Port’ in the Swiss town of Rolle (nothing to do with the grape variety found in white Bellet) exemplifies such mastery. Maybe there are a couple of other dishes on the […]

There is a common misconception that being a wine merchant is a fantastic ‘lifestyle’ career and that we spend 90% of our time swanning around glamorous vineyards in warmer climes drinking wonderful wines and stuffing ourselves on the fantastic local cuisine. Well we do spend a fair amount of time doing just that and of […]

Every summer la famille Yapp retires to a sleepy backwater of La France Profonde that lies roughly between the small towns of Nontron (knives) and Thiviers (foie gras) to enjoy the not so Grandes Vacances where the biggest decisions of the day are what to cook that evening and what to drink with the meal. […]