The Terrace Rooms and Wine, Ventnor.
A recent visit to The Terrace Rooms and Wine in Ventnor, Isle of Wight, represents a new opportunity to bring English wine and education directly to consumers. Under one roof, visitors have the opportunity to explore wines from across regions and styles that they would be unlikely to encounter elsewhere, bringing the vineyard to them.
Tom and Ashley Fahey are the husband and wife team behind The Terrace, and the operation reflects both of their fingerprints throughout. Tom is the driving force in the cellar and kitchen: sommelier, buyer, host and chef, currently rated among the UK’s top sommeliers by Harpers Wine and Spirits, with a wine list that has earned the only Star Wine List Gold Star held outside London. Ashley leads front of house and marketing, giving the place its voice as well as its welcome, and is the aesthetic mind whose eye for detail brings the whole experience together. Between them they have built something that functions as much more than a place to stay.
The canvas was the restoration of the Victorian St Augustine Villa, a seafront landmark that has operated as a guesthouse for over 150 years. The operation now comprises six individually designed sea-view rooms, a cellar of over 1,200 bottles, a daily evening tasting and a wine shop open to guests and the public alike. The wider accolades reflect the ambition of the project: Caesar Award for Best UK B&B from the Good Hotel Guide, inclusion in the Times 100 Best Places to Stay across consecutive years and named best UK wine hotel by Decanter.
Breakfast deserves a mention of its own. The four-course morning spread has become a defining feature of a stay, generous, carefully sourced and worth lingering over, setting the tone for a visit built around pleasure and attention to detail.
The evening tasting is where the real work happens. The list changes daily, keeping the experience fresh and genuinely educational for returning guests and newcomers alike. Informal, communal and deliberately accessible, it brings together guests of varying knowledge around a shared table. During my visit, people at very different stages of their wine journey were tasting alongside one another, learning informally, asking questions, broadening their frame of reference. Conversation moved naturally into English wine, the Isle of Wight’s own emerging vineyard scene, and what this corner of the south coast might be capable of producing.
The Terrace also operates as a connector within the wider island economy, working alongside local restaurants, tourism destinations and hospitality partners to create a genuine pull to visit the Isle of Wight. English wine travels with it. Guests who arrive with little prior knowledge of the category leave having discovered producers and styles that are now part of their consideration set.
The cellar door experience remains important, but the wine hotel and wine-led stay are carving out their own space as a route to new audiences. What The Terrace demonstrates is that you do not need a vineyard to build a meaningful entry point into wine. You need expertise, a thoughtfully curated list, and the hospitality to match.
