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If you’re travelling from afar for one of the events at Bowood House or to play a few rounds of golf at Bowood golf course, then one of Wiltshire’s finest luxury hotels near Bowood is to be recommended. Beechfield House is a gem of a small, independent, luxury, country house hotel run with great passion by the owner managers. Here it’s the extra little touches that make all the difference and certainly add to the pleasure of a visit to this part of the west country. You can see what guests have to say in the hotel’s guest book.

Here’s the latest wine events calendar from Hotel TerraVina, the luxury boutique hotel in the New Forest, near Southampton, Hampshire

May 17th 2009
Peter Lehmann of the Barossa Valley Wine Dinner
With Andrew Wigan, Chief Wine Maker and giant of the Barossa. Peter Lehmann is a true legend in the wine world and an icon of the Barossa Valley.  During the difficult period of the late seventies and early eighties when some of the large…

June 21st 2009
Provence Wine Dinner
Jason Yapp, The Wine Merchant extraordinaire, shares his passion for the wines of Provence. Established in 1969 Yapp Brothers is a boutique wine merchant located in the village of Mere in Wiltshire…

26th of July 2009
The Laura Rhys Wine Dinner
With Miss Laura Rhys UK Sommelier of the Year 2009
Laura, a young English lady, beat two sommeliers, both of whom are French men, to win the UK Sommelier of the Year award…

August 23rd 2009
Grand Summer Cocktail Party
With a selection of cocktails from our own cocktail maestro, Laurent Richet, canapés and pizza from the TerraVina wood-fired pizza oven…

September 13th 2009
An Insight into Jackson Family Wines
Californian evening presented by leading wine expert, Dimitri Mesnard MS, Prestige Account Manager (Europe) of Jackson Family Wines and Master Sommelier…

October 25th 2009
A Ballade through Burgundy
Master of Wine, Richard Lashbrook, a Director of Thorman Hunt, importer of fine wines, will guide us through a range of superb Burgundy wines that he knows well through his regular purchasing visits to the wineries…

Kit Chapman and his two sons, Dominic and Nick, feature in tonight’s episode of Keep It in the Family.  Dominic and Nick return to their childhood home in Taunton to see if they’re willing to take over the reins from their parents and to run the family-owned hotel.

Dominic is an award-winning chef who trained under Heston Blumenthal and is now in charge of the prestigious kitchen at Michael Parkinson’s The Royal Oak. Nick has built up a highly successful internet advertising company. Both have agreed to spend some time at the hotel learning the ropes before a busy weekend working together to see if they might be willing and able to take on the challenges of running the famous Castle at Taunton. With two highly rated restaurants, one of which is regularly Michelin starred, and a turbulent family history over the past fifty years, the brothers – and their father – have big decisions to make.

The programme is repeated on BBC2, Wednesday, May 20th

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May 17th 2008

With Andrew Wigan, Chief Wine Maker and giant of the Barossa. Peter Lehmann is a true legend in the wine world and an icon of the Barossa Valley.  During the difficult period of the late seventies and early eighties, some of the large Australian wine companies renaged on their agreements and refused to buy so much of the crop from the wine growers because of an over production of grapes. Peter Lehmann, however, though working as a manager for one of these big companies, took the side of the growers.  In 1982, he set up Peter Lehmann Wines and made wines with the grapes from the growers to whom he had given his word to purchase their grapes.

To this day Peter Lehmann wines are typically Australian with a great generosity of flavours and wonderfully suave in texture. Tonight, we are privileged to have with us Chief Winemaker Andrew Wigan to comment through dinner on some of his delicious wines, including the prestigious Stonewell Shiraz!

Our wine dinners take place in our Rutherford Bench private room.  The layout of the room is made up of three large tables, each table accommodating a maximum of 12 people.  On that basis, small parties, couples or single guests will be seated together to form a table of 12.

Other wine dinners at Hotel TerraVina

Brothers Dominic and Nick Chapman return to their childhood home in Taunton, The Castle hotel, to see if they’re willing to take over the running of the family owned hotel.

Their father,  Kit Chapman, comes from five generations of hoteliers but after his own painful succession experience, he’s determined to make things easier for his sons. The programme tries to determine which, if either of them, might be interested in and best suited to running hotel? Dominic, 35, is an award-winning chef who trained under Heston Blumenthal and is now in charge of the prestigious kitchen at Michael Parkinson’s The Royal Oak. Nick, 33, is a new media entrepreneur who has built up a highly successful internet advertising company. Both perfom a stint at this famous hotel learning the ropes separately, before a busy weekend working together to see if they might be willing and able to take on the challenges of running the famous Castle with forty four rooms.

Tune in on Thursday, May 14th on BBC2

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Great article in The Times recently when Luke Leitch visited the hotel to be apprentice sommelier for the day. There’s nowhere better to learn the tricks of the trade with Gerard Basset as your tutor and his sommelier at Hotel TerraVina, Laura Rhys, who recently won UK Sommelier of the Year 2009, as your guide.

Here’s the full article: The Sommelier’s Apprentice

Amongst the judges were Matt Wilkin, director of the Academy of Food & Wine, the winner of the award in 2008, Gearoid Devaney, and food writer Tom Parker-Bowles.

Laura’s impressive win serves to elevate still further Hotel TerraVina as one of the UK’s finest wine focused hotels and restaurants. It is also further testimony of owner Gerard Basset’s commitment to the personal development and the professional education of young people in the industry.

As winner, Laura was awarded a trip to Champagne in France including a private tour of Champagne Piper-Heidsieck & Charles Heidsieck, joint sponsors of the event, as well as two nights at the three-Michelin-starred Château Les Crayères, Reims.

 It’s hardly surprising that the wine events at Hotel TerraVina are so popular.