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 […]

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 […]

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 […]