The Old Vine, Winchester

Official site of the Old Vine, contains menu and wine list - www.oldvinewinchester.com

Transformed from a student haunt into a self confessed gastropub with matching customers, emaciated blonde women with sunglasses in their hair, air kissing on meeting their friends, grey middle aged blokes but with a sprinkling of younger customers too. Tasteful white walls, art work, obligatory candle powered tables, old beamed ceiling that I don't remember from its previous life and a bare board floor which I do although it's a lot cleaner now. Four handpumps with mainly local ales; Ringwood, Hogsback TEA, Bowmans Swiftone and Yorkshire's Timothy Taylor Landlord. Upper end of the lager range, Hoegaarden, Leffe plus San Miguel, Amstel, Guinness and Thatchers Gold. Obviously there's an extensive wine list, you may purchase a glass of Tattinger for £6.25. I chose the Hogsback, at a price not communicated to me by the supercilious barman, it was mediocre but to be fair it often is, the bottled version is normally better. A very different place now to its student days but not unwelcoming to casual drinkers, the area to the right on entering is used for this with barflys and vertical drinking, to the left is purely dining. I did eat here and the food was very good.