The New World may have been making moves for a while now, but you can’t beat a fine French vintage. The domaines and châteaux of rural France have produced wine for centuries, many in time becoming vineyard hotels ready to receive oenophile-leaning guests. Here are some of the best French wine hotels, from the Languedoc to the Loire Valley…
LA MAISON D’ESTOURNEL
Haut-Médoc
Forget cups of sugar — your next-door neighbour at La Maison d’Estournel is the Château Cos d’Estournel winery so you can borrow (or buy) cups, bottles or boxes of wine instead. Other esteemed members of the community are Château Pichon Baron and Château Mouton Rothschild.
The 18th-century mansion promises acres of land with ancient cedars, rooms and bath tubs with a view, and a terrace for vine appreciation and decadent dinners. This may apply for most of Bordeaux, but the Médoc in particular has some especially impressive wine-growing creds. This house was once the home of a respected vintner and his legacy is in good shape.
CHATEAU CAPITOUL
Narbonne
Does anything shout ‘delicious French wine!’ louder than the word ‘Languedoc’? Mais, non — and you can expect to drink plenty at Château Capitoul in Narbonne, near Montpellier and Perpignan, amid the Languedoc’s millennia-old vineyards. The château’s Roman-planted vines have had lots of time to mature and they look pretty good too, especially when seen from its hillside setting.
Guests can sign up for strolls through the vineyards, tastings of the domaine’s wares and gourmet picnics in the grounds. Other activities on offer include snoozes in the shade of an olive tree, treatments at the Cinq Mondes spa and unashamedly French games of pétanque. The Irish châtelains are also behind Château St Pierre de Serjac (see below) and Château Les Carrasses, so you know you’re in safe, fellow-oenophile hands.
VILLA LA COSTE
Provence
Villa is an understatement when describing this Provençal manor, on the same estate as the wine-producing Château la Coste, in between Aix-en-Provence and the Luberon. This hillside Francophile’s haven is home to a spa, library and 28 suites, which all open onto a vine- and valley-facing terrace. And with grounds this gorgeous, it’d be rude not to share them — Château La Coste opens its doors regularly for outdoor cinema screenings, art exhibitions and concerts.
Gourmet getaways to this vineyard hotel are only be improved with restaurants by Hélène Darroze and Argentine pyromaniac Francis Mallmann, and a bright and breezy café designed by Japanese architect Tadao Ando.
ROYAL CHAMPAGNE HOTEL & SPA
Champagne
If you prefer your wine to have bubbles in it, there’s only one place to locate a French vineyard hotel: the Appellation d’Origine Contrôlée (AOC) of Champagne, ie the only place on the planet where wine is allowed to call itself champagne and not just plain old sparkling wine.
Royal Champagne Hotel & Spa, a 17th-century coaching inn and erstwhile open-air dance hall, is a 10-minute drive from Epernay, with some serious neighbours (Moët, Pol Roger and co). Unsurprisingly, the (Michelin-starred, of course) food is as laboured over as the wine. You’ll also be able to enjoy views of the vines served straight to the spa.
CHÂTEAU ST PIERRE DE SERJAC
The Languedoc
With a trio of châteaux to their name, we’re guessing Karl and Anita O’Hanlon, who fled Dublin almost 20 years ago, know a thing or two about wine by now – although they had a little help from the Romans in getting the vineyard at Château St Pierre de Serjac off the ground (there’s been a winery on this site in the Languedoc for a good few thousand years).
Helping guests along until it’s officially wine o’clock are a spa with a hot tub overlooking the vines, tennis courts and a pétanque pitch, a heated pool and bicycles to borrow (onions and baguettes not included). When you’re ready to chin-chin, the estate’s output, which includes syrah, pinot noir and chardonnay, awaits.
DOMAINE LES ROULLETS
Vaucluse
Not one to let the side down on the Epicurean scale, Domaine les Roullets in Vaucluse produces olive oil as well as wine, and there’s a truffle forest attached, too. The hill-top B&B goes big on the Gallic charm, with beamed ceilings, stone walls and frilly bedding. From the terrace of one of the suites, Mont Ventoux will be visible on a good day. Also awaiting blue skies and sunshine is the domaine’s organic (or bio) Côte du Luberon rosé, with full-bodied reds ready for steaks, cheeseboards and cosy days.
The star of the immaculate grounds is undoubtedly the pool, lined by roses and, a little more helpfully, sunloungers.
LES SOURCES DE CHEVERNY
Loire Valley
Whisky may officially be the water of life, but at Les Sources de Cheverny the fountainhead is wine — and the favoured local appellations to wash down your French fine-dining with are Vouvray and Menetou-Salon. Hangovers stand no chance in the face of walks in the ancient forest and around the lake, and hair-of-the-dog trips to the many other neighbouring vineyards of the Loire Valley.
The follow-up to the spiritual home of vinotherapy Les Sources de Caudalie over in Bordeaux, Cheverny is amid the wetlands and woodlands of the Sologne, a lesser-visited part of the Loire. And yes, just as at its sister hotel, you’ll be able to take your oenophilia to new levels with an exfoliating Cabernet scrub or antioxidant grape-extract massage.
LES SOURCES DE CAUDALIE
Bordeaux
Les Sources de Caudalie (sister stay to Les Sources de Cheverny in the Loire Valley) is very oenophile-friendly. The beauty brand’s origin story begins here in Bordeaux, at the esteemed Château Smith Haut Lafitte (no relation), which belongs to co-founder Mathilde Thomas’s family. In the early Nineties, a professor visiting the château during the harvest revealed that grape seeds contain some of the most powerful antioxidants in the world. Together with her husband Bertrand, Mathilde was inspired to put these seeds to good use, and their first products were created in 1995 — two years later the famous spritz-of-many-uses, Beauty Elixir, was born. Naturally, the brand name had to be wine-related — Caudalie refers to how long a wine’s flavours linger on the palate after tasting.
In 1999, the Vinothérapie Spa opened, after the couple serendipitously discovered a hot spring 500 metres underground on the family domaine. Today, alongside wholesome wellbeing journeys at the spa, guests can enjoy glasses of wine by the lake, two-Michelin-star dinners and tours of the Château Smith Haut Lafitte winery.
CHÂTEAU LÉOGNAN
Bordeaux
It’s very predictable — yet another brilliant French wine hotel in Bordeaux. But if it ain’t broke… And things are very much in working order at Château Léognan, south-west of the city, on the Graves and Sauternes wine route. Its architecture has been borrowed from a storybook, with turrets, columns, arched windows and a confection of a chapel (with spires, of course) right next door to the main building. If you know your claret from your Beaujolais, it’s in the Pessac-Léognan appellation, which benefits from a milder climate and some of the best soils in the region. Both red and white drinkers will enjoy some happy sipping here.
Along with the vines, the 173 acres are home to a tennis court, spa and gym overlooking the parkland. There are lots of other châteaux nearby, too — borrow one of the electric bicycles (you’ll be glad of the effortless pedalling post-tasting) and head over to try their wares. When the city calls, Bordeaux is just half an hour’s drive away.
Raise your glasses and discover a whole world’s worth of wine escapes