Yapp Brothers is focusing on distributing exceptional, best-in-class wines
In 1969 dentist Robin Yapp ordered some of the artisanal French wine he was so passionate about while at lunch. The fact that, rather than a few bottles, a whole pallet arrived at the garage of his Wiltshire home didn’t deter Yapp. Instead, he did what any enterprising spirit would do: placed a small advert in The Sunday Times offering case sales and, in doing so, inadvertently established one of the UK’s most prestigious and respected Wine Merchants.
Yapp Brothers, still run by members of Robin’s family, has since become a name synonymous with high-quality regional French wines built on an unwavering focus on offering only the best-in-class from under-championed regions. “We’ve grown so much in my two decades at the business,” says Tom Ashworth, Robin’s stepson and current CEO of Yapp Brothers. 
“We’ve expanded our range of wines and domaines and developed the business by digitizing our processes and moving to a newer and larger site,” he adds. “Our selection is still predominantly French, but we’ve grown to include great wines from Australia, Spain, Germany, South Africa, and Argentina.
“We’re a full-service wine merchant – we sell over the phone, through catalogues and via our website to private customers, provide wine to independent retailers and wholesalers, and supply to around 400 restaurants and hotels in the UK. The latter includes the likes of The Dorchester, Alain Ducasse, Claridge’s, Fat Duck, and Gordon Ramsay Royal Hospital Road, London. Collectively, it’s a group with around 80 Michelin stars.”
Superior customer service
Tom describes the wine industry as ‘ruthlessly competitive’, discussing how Yapp Brothers’ dedication to providing only the very best by seeking out new and under-championed regions has kept it ahead of the curve for 56 years.
Its agencies include world-famous domaines such as Jean-Louis Chave, Georges Vernay, Patrick Jasmin, Auguste Clape, Alain Graillot, Le Vieux Donjon, Trévallon and Jasper Hill. Yapp also eyes new trends, seeking underrated regions and ‘talent spotting’ for new winemakers – 20 years ago it was one of the first wine merchants in the UK to import several exceptional Corsican wines, for example.
“As well as the wine we provide, we work hard to make sure our service levels are absolutely at their peak,” Tom continues. “We offer a full service, running a wine counter from our premises, providing next day delivery for customers, ensuring our website and ecommerce services are as simple and user friendly as possible, and providing advice and tasting events to engage our customers.”
To maintain this level of service, Yapp Brothers always eyes growth and evolution. “Our major recent development has been relocating from our Mere, Wiltshire site – where we’ve been for 50 years – to our new home in Sparkford, Somerset,” Tom explains. “Our Mere location was a great place for customers and our shop, but we’d outgrown it from a warehousing and logistics perspective. It was a challenging move, relocating 150 pallets of wine and setting up and modernizing all our systems over one weekend, but the new location trebles our storage capacity and enhances productivity, efficiency, and sustainability.”
At the same time Yapp Brothers has digitized its ordering processes and embraced new innovations like AI. “We were an early adopter of online services and ecommerce capabilities, with our first website launching in the mid-90s,” says Tom. “For the past decade or so the majority of our sales have been through our website, hitting a peak during the Covid pandemic. We’ve always been an ecommerce company, and we continue to adapt to the way people want to shop online and with their mobiles. We recently also developed a generative AI advisor on our website that answers customers’ questions and provides advice and recommendations about wine.”
Commitment to quality
Moving to a new site allows Yapp Brothers to continue its drive towards more sustainable practices. The wine industry has suffered from climate change in recent years, with changing weather conditions and water availability in key regions impacting growth, quality, and harvesting of grapes. To mitigate its own environmental impact, Yapp focuses on being as sustainable as possible in its operations.
“Our energy use is low, and we try to keep it as efficient as possible,” adds Tom. “We’re working on installing solar panels on our roof, we use electric forklifts in our warehouse, we’ve signed up to packaging compliance, and we encourage our winemakers to adopt organic farming methods. Our goal is to become essentially Net Zero across our operations in the new site and, more broadly, I’d love us to work towards B Corp certification or something similar.”
Tom’s ambition shows that the same pioneering spirit that established and grew Yapp Brothers in the early years remains alive and well. Despite industry challenges, he and the team remain confident they can stay true to this approach while ensuring the business remains one of the UK’s foremost wine merchants.
“You have to keep the DNA of what’s made the company successful in the first place but still be willing to adapt, seek out new products, and find new ways to deliver for customers,” he affirms. “We’ve several core areas of focus. I’d like to achieve bonded status for our warehouse so we can import and store wine for private customers and other merchants, we’ll develop our services and look at new opportunities in areas like low and no alcohol wines, and we’ll continue to drive our sustainability efforts. Beyond that, it always comes back to quality. You can focus on price, packaging and marketing, or other factors but you ultimately must be providing wine that’s pleasurable, great, and exciting for people to drink. That never changes.”