The Restaurant Guide for Wine Lovers
The Castle Inn
The Castle Inn is a seasonal gastropub in Bradford-on-Avon serving pub classics and small plates. Its short, mostly entry-level wine list covers the food competently, with a welcome by-the-glass and carafe range, but stays shallow and offers nothing sweet or fortified for its own dessert menu. It suits the pub-goer who wants a good-value glass with a decent plate, more than the drinker after depth or a wine to finish on.
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La Bobina
Marlborough, Wiltshire
Spanish tapas and sherry bar
La Bobina is a Spanish tapas and sherry bar on Marlborough high street where an almost wholly Spanish list is built to be poured a glass at a time. The wine programme earns its standing on a genuine shared idiom with the kitchen and on an unusually deep Jerez offer — seven Sherries by the glass that answer the hardest, saltiest plates the menu can throw at them — held back only by a thin sparkling range and no stated sustainability story. It will most reward the diner who comes to graze across many small plates and wants a considered glass, or a flight of Sherry, for each.
Read the assessmentDan's Restaurant
Marlborough, Wiltshire
Modern European / global-eclectic
Dan's Restaurant is an independent Marlborough kitchen whose menu crosses continents, backed by an unusually curious forty-bottle list that reaches from a Macedonian white to a Margaux. The wine programme earns its standing on that character and breadth — a buyer following genuine taste rather than filling categories — held back only by a bottle-only offer with no printed by-the-glass and no sweet or fortified wine to see the puddings home. It will most reward the curious drinker happy to choose a whole bottle and travel the list as widely as the menu travels the map.
Read the assessmentThe Marlborough Inn
Marlborough, Wiltshire
Modern British gastropub
The Marlborough is a Wiltshire country inn cooking confident modern-British gastropub food, with a short, sensible international wine list priced generously by the glass. The wine programme does its job competently and has a genuine local strength in its sparkling, but it is assembled to cover the menu rather than built to it, and it closes with a clear gap where a dessert or fortified wine should be. It will most reward the diner who wants a well-priced, well-explained glass beside a good pub plate rather than a list to explore for its own sake.
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