Why I’m still yapping – homage to a great French wine pioneer
I’m on a Rhône roll. It all started a year ago when I was on a Vallée de la Gastronomie press trip exploring the food and drink specialities of the 500km corridor of France between Dijon and Marseille, much of it following that mightiest of rivers.
De rigueur was a stop-off in the Northern Rhône wine region – home to fabled Syrah-based reds such as Côte-Rôtie, St Joseph, Cornas and, of course, Hermitage, its perfect terroir of vertiginous vineyards towering over Tain L’Hermitage on the left bank.
Our base was arch rival Tournon-sur-Rhône, across on the right bank and so officially in the Ardèche. Just 4km south we stopped for a bistro lunch – and epiphany. Nothing has changed in the hamlet of Mauves since the great American wine importer Kermit Lynch visited in the 1980s. In his Adventures On The Wine Route he described it as a “thin strip of a town that supports itself growing fruit and making wine. Nowhere in Mauves is there evidence of the French flair for storefronts, or any outward flair at all for that matter.”
So there I am sitting in the Du Jardin à L’Assiette after my onglet de boeuf et sa réduction vin rouge/‘échalotes with a fruit-driven St Joseph from down the road when ‘Mauves’ strikes a chord. A quick Google of Gérard Chave and I briefly “faire mes excuses’. One minute down Main Street (really the only street) lies the HQ of one of the world’s great winemakers, recipient of the Légion d’honneur, whose family have been ‘treading the grapes’ since 1481.
The pebble dash is much newer, but the faded sign looks almost medieval. Even before Lynch, the UK’s own Robin Yapp had made the pilgrimage in search of securing an allocation of the red (and the domaine’s equally sublime white).
In his Drilling for Wine, published in 1988, the same year as Adventures, the Wiltshire dentist turned wine merchant wrote: “The busy route nationale 86 passes through… in the dash and bustle of the traffic it’s easy to miss the small tin panneau set at right angles to the wall above the door, its faded legend J-L Chave, Vigneron being all that indicates the Chave establishment.”
Jean-Louis was the name of Gérard’s father and also of his son, who runs the show these days with Dad benignly over-seeing. A classy rusticity belies a cellar containing sophisticated bottles that cost over £300 each, when available, from Yapp Brothers. The whole appellation only runs to 140 hectares, not much more than a major Bordeaux estate, of which Chave has the major holding (the negociant Jaboulet has the largest ‘Kindness-style’ banner on the hill).
Back in the early Eighties I was buying from Yapp great vintages of Chave Hermitage for a few quid, plus other near exclusives, equally tannic and long-lived… Auguste Clape’s Cornas and Robert Jasmin’s Côte-Rôtie. Each a different variation on the Syrah grape.
What a cellar. I can still recall the intermittent opening of a bottle, unleashing scents of raspberry, blackberry, black cherry, spice, olives and smoke. Time had to be taken with each glass as its wonders unfolded.
All long drunk, alas. The firm Robin formed is still going strong, though he is now retired and his son Jason has also stepped back, leaving stepson, Tom Ashworth at the helm in their new expanded premises near Frome, Somerset, having moved from Mere in Dorset. Have they left behind at “The Old Dairy’ the replica of the famous Châteauneuf-du-Pape statue Robin recreated at great expense?
His prose is equally extravagant. Drilling for Wine (stocked by Abe Books) is a rollicking, picaresque tale of an ingenue with limited French at large in the Rhône and Loire. That he earned the trust and allocations of so many seasoned winemakers is testimony to more than his charm, but don’t let that spoil some good stories. Lynch’s book is in a different league – arguably the best wine travelogue ever written. His wine importing hub in Berkeley, California has arguably been as influential as fellow Francophile Alice Waters’ Chez Panisse restaurant there.
And now a liquid Chave epiphany
I caught up recently with Yapp’s current range at their Annual Tasting on London’s Pall Mall. A limited range of the wines also featured at a Terrace Tasting at Ad Hoc in Manchester. This was organised by northern rep, Miles Burke, who is responsible for their increasing presence on the city’s restaurant lists, notably at Stow, MFDF Awards Newcomer of the Year 2026.
The true classics, though, turned up at Pall Mall. Among the reds, the aforementioned Cornas from Auguste Clape, darkly, brooding as ever, and Domaine de Trevallon from further south in Provence, still an outlaw outside AOC rules because it blends Cabernet Sauvignon with Syrah. I must have collected the first 10 vintages of the latter, but it’s now outside my price range. The 2016 now costs £125 retail from Yapp, the 2012 £215 on the Stow list. The 2017 Clape is £150 from Yapp and £290 from Stow (a kind mark-up).
Good to reacquaint myself with such old faves, but it was a duo of legendary Rhône whites that captured the attention of myself and many another taster on the day.
Château-Grillet 2022 was the headline act. All the characteristics of the Viognier grape were there – honeysuckle aromas and textures of stone fruit on the palate – but it felt a touch closed in, a reminder that 10 years of bottle age would transform it. This monopole vineyard with its own AOC and a handful of growers under the Condrieu AOC flew the unfashionable Viognier flag for decades. Hard to believe when this grape is now cultivated across the globe. Alas, too often creating blowsy wines, all vanilla and talcum. Nowhere but this narrow corner of the Rhône is is it so sublime.
Alongside it on the table the powerful White Hermitage that is not overshadowed by its red sibling. Domaine Jean-Louis Chave 2020 blends Marsanne and Rousanne for a rare complexity and a 14.5 per cent ABV. A food wine, as they say.
For an entry level Rhône white (just £17.50) across the room I encountered a Côtes du Rhône Villages L’Oratory Blanc Sablet 2024. This an aromatic apricot and peach-laden blend of Southern Rhone varietals Viognier, Bourboulenc, Clairette, Roussanne and Grenache Blanc from Domaine Saint-Gayan. When we visited in the Eighties with the kids in tow (“go play with the vigneron’s dog while we taste”), the target was the surprisingly elegant, powerful old vine Gigondas red produced by Roger Meffre. The winemaker now is his son-in-law, Christian-Yves Carré de Lusançay, who was pouring at Pall Mall.
In the diary – the ‘Rhone In White’ show at Freight Island
If all this has whetted your appetite for the whites of the region, try and squeeze a ticket for a Trade Show at Manchester’s Freight Island on Wednesday, April 29.
Explore 100 plus Rhône whites from 20 plus appellations, North and South. 12pm-5pm. The doyen of contemporary Rhône experts, Matt Walls, will hold two masterclasses exploring the Rhône’s diverse styles and terroirs:
Matt moved his family to the region for two years to research his comprehensive Wines of the Rhône (Infinite Ideas, £30). Indispensable.
Five Yapp wines that won’t break the bank
IGP Collines Rhodaniennes: Patrick Jasmin ‘La Chevalière’ 2023 £19.95
Patrick took over the family estate in Ampuis when his father Robert was hit by a car and killed in 1999 and has continued to make exemplary Côte-Rôtie plus this ‘mini version’ from lesser Indication Géographique Protégée vineyards. Sleek and lovely Syrah.
Jura Arbois: Trousseau Domaine Jean-Louis Tissot 2024 (£21.50)
A light, spicy red wine from pure Trousseau – a grape which thrives on the slopes around Arbois in the Jura region between Burgundy and the Alps. The Tissot Ploussard is even lighter but equally savoury.
Tavel: Domaine Maby ‘La Forcadière’ Rosé 2025 (£17.95)
Forget all those pale commercial Provencal rosés. This organic, full-bodied deep pink Rhône iteration is a great food wine. It would cope with a herby meat daube or even a tagine.
Saumur Champigny: Domaine Filliatreau ‘Vieilles Vignes’ 2022 (£23.25)
A red I have loved for 30 years. Everything a Loire Cabernet Franc should be and more. Perfect slightly chilled now but lay it down for a few years and expect even greater rewards.
Reuilly: Gerard Cordier Blanc 2024 (£17.75)
Robin Yapp’s pioneering expeditions extended beyond the Rhône into the Loire and even today when the list covers many regions some stalwarts from the Valley remain. One of the most evocative chapters from Drilling for Wine is his meeting with the generous Cordier family, restoring his faith after he had been ripped off by a grower in another small village. The Cordiers still supply their Reuilly sauvignon blanc and, as I write I’m going to match it tonight with new season asparagus. Let’s close with the Yapp catalogue’s celebration of this humble white: “It has a bracing bouquet of wild flowers and camomile with crisp, nettle and gooseberry flavours on the palate.”
So a far remove from Chave White Hermitage, but wine offers so many varied delights. As exemplified by a Yapp Brothers Tasting. By they way, there never was a Brother. Robin thought the name added gravitas to his nascent operation.
