I had lunch at Benares today, Atul Kochhar’s Michelin-starred Indian restaurant on Berkeley Square, and Atul told me he has taken a stake in Wickham Vineyard in Hampshire. Not to get involved in wine production, which will remain in the same hands as before, but to open a fine-dining restaurant there — called Vatika (Sanskrit for ‘Vineyard’).

It will be open five nights a week, from April, with lunchtime opening planned if all goes well. The idea is to be as ‘low carbon’ as might be commensurate with fine dining — using locally sourced ingredients, his own smoking room (that’s meat, not cigars), his own vegetable garden, his own carp pond … Wickham Vineyard (supplier of the House of Commons’ own-label white) had 35,000 visitors last year, apparently, and plans to build a new winery next year. Think of the importance of vineyard restaurants in Australia, California and South Africa, and you’ll realise this is an overdue development for the UK.

I was also reminded that Waitrose Wine Direct (the online Waitrose shopfront) sold more English wine than ‘claret’ in November, and has experienced 120% growth in English wine sales over the last year.

Let’s hope there’s a sunny summer on the way...