Slipping away for a weekend of fine dining with a stylish room to slink back to afterwards is one of life's great pleasures. But if you're a wine lover, that narrows the options somewhat. You want wine to be on an equal footing with the exciting food, which includes being offered interesting things to try by the glass, presented by someone passionate. And you want more of an overall wine experience to discover new things, to be among like-minded people. Well, we've found your tribe, at venues ranging from a six-room guest house with a wine cave on the Isle of Wight, to the smartest shepherd's hut you're ever likely to lay your head in, overlooking a row of vines in Devon. You're welcome...
BEST FOR SEA VIEWS
ISLE OF WIGHT
The Terrace Rooms & Wine
St Augustine Villa, Ventnor PO38 1TA
The moon shimmers on the water in Ventnor Bay as we sip Coates & Seely fizz from Hampshire under a glass-covered pergola at a stylishly restored Italianate mansion. The accompanying dish is a refined riff on island speciality crab on chips' -just-picked white crab meat on a potato terrine with pickled apple, and a crab and potato tortilla topped with a sea truffle and chicken glaze. This is the first of nine courses, each paired with a different wine plucked from the Wine Room, which lists both an 'In' and 'Out' price, handwritten on brown paper tags dangling from bottle necks, with mark-ups at half the industry average.
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