WELCOME to the Hotel California...

As The Eagles’ classic song goes, pink champagne was on ice when we were offered a glass as an aperitif at our recent lunch at The Vineyard, in Stockcross, near Newbury, just off the A4.

This stunning hotel and spa is a wine-lover’s heaven, with 30,000 bottles covering 3,000 wines, of which nearly 500 are from California alone, with a sizeable contingent from the hotel owner and founder of Classic FM Sir Peter Michael’s own winery, located in the aforementioned golden state.

Friendly service comes from urbane young Europeans who are well-informed with top chef Daniel Galmiche and his team’s culinary outputs, and this extends to the sommelier team too, who offered sound advice on wine selections by dish.

We selected the Discovery Tasting menu, which is essentially the chef’s selection of four dishes from his repertoire, but there is plenty of scope to flex your choice from an eclectic choice of starters, main courses and desserts, and there is also a sevencourse Judgement Tasting menu, with a selection of six Californian and six French wines.

Seated at a table with a view over the lower dining area, the spacious dining rooms, even when the restaurant is busy, never feel crowded or rushed, and the diner is given the right time and space between the courses to enjoy the stylish, tasteful artwork and tableware as well as his or her table companions’ company.

A choice of three breads with unsalted butter – my sour dough was spot on; and then came our first course: pressed confit foie gras, rhubarb, ginger and spiced bread served on a black slate.

The foie gras was like “meat butter” and beautifully balanced by the presence of rhubarb. To complement this we ordered a 50cl bottle of 2008 Luigi Bosca, Gewurztraminer, Granos Nobles from Argentina.

I was attracted to this wine as it was about two to three times less expensive than the Alsace Trimbach Sélections de Grains Nobles versions. I asked the sommelier for his advice about matching this with the foie gras course and our dessert and he suggested that by serving it first cellar cool and then bringing it down a few degrees for our dessert we would get “two wines for one”. The spiciness of the grape, coupled with the sweetness and cellar temperature, complemented the starter perfectly.

The fish course was a pair of hand-dived scallops, carrot, lemon and hazelnut served on a square green glass plate.

The cooking of the scallops was beautifully judged, being cooked largely on one side only with the cooked side starting to caramelise and much of the scallop still retaining a translucency, tenderness and sweetness which is sadly often lost and cooked out by some chefs.

The carrot, aside from some shavings, was presented as an intense purée and the dressing of lemon balanced out the creaminess of the puree.

Our meat course was served with a modest degree of theatricality under domes which released, when lifted, a puff of smoke revealing cherry wood smoked oxtail, fillet of beef, onion and Swiss chard.

The oxtail was rich and deeply flavoured and clearly slow-cooked, with the fillet being a perfectly trimmed cylinder of meat cooked rare and of sublime tenderness.

Swiss chard is a vegetable I enjoy cooking and consuming and today’s offering did not disappoint. Again, with the sommelier’s advice, I selected a glass of 2007 Les Allees de Cantemerle, 2eme du Chateau Cantemerle and it matched well with the ‘beefy’ nature of this course.

Our dessert was an excellent white chocolate and passion fruit terrine and exotic purée which reminded me of similar great offerings at some of London’s most exciting and innovative restaurants.

Whilst I enjoy visits to our capital and the variety of fine dining on offer there, I was pleased to be reminded on this return visit to The Vineyard, after a two-year lapse, of how good this hotel’s restaurant is, being just 30 minutes away. The money one would spend on train and taxi fares to London could instead be spent on exploring and enjoying their amazing wine list – just bring along a teetotal companion to drive you home.

Menus from £29 for lunch (Sunday £39); dinner from £49. Wine from £6 per glass, £25 per bottle.

DEREK KANE