Montpellier, France

Château St Pierre de Serjac

Price per night from$129.49

Price information

If you haven’t entered any dates, the rate shown is provided directly by the hotel and represents the cheapest double room (inclusive of taxes and fees) available in the next 60 days.

Prices have been converted from the hotel’s local currency (EUR122.92), via openexchangerates.org, using today’s exchange rate.

Style

Languedoc-ly lounging

Setting

Estate au vin

Surrounded by rolling vineyards, Château St Pierre de Serjac is a beautifully restored 19th-century manor turned hotel, with its own working winery (and label). The original buildings that were set around the estate have been converted into family-friendly self-catering options (some even have their own pool), and outdoor enthusiasts can cycle or stroll through the rolling French countryside. Back at the château, there’s a massive heated outdoor infinity pool, a modern French restaurant, and a spoiling Cinq Mondes spa with a hammam, sauna and hydrotherapy pool. Oh-là-là.

Smith Extra

Get this when you book through us:

One bottle of wine from the Château St Pierre de Serjac estate, mineral water and a selection of mignardises in your room on arrival

Facilities

Photos Château St Pierre de Serjac facilities

Need to know

Rooms

Eight in the main château; there are also 36 self-catering properties scattered around the estate.

Check–Out

11am for hotel rooms, 10am for villas. Check-in is from 4pm for rooms and 5pm for villas.

More details

Rates don't generally include the buffet breakfast (€22; €14 for under-13s and free for under-5s).

Also

Get an insider’s view into the world of Languedoc wine making with a tasting session and tour of the estate’s winery.

Hotel closed

The hotel closes annually from 16 February to 1 March.

At the hotel

Free WiFi throughout, tennis courts, petanque courts, bicycles to borrow, spa with steam room, hammam, hydrotherapy pool and sauna. In rooms: WiFi, TV, Bluetooth speakers, Nespresso coffee machine, and Cinq Mondes bath products.

Our favourite rooms

We love the intricate, hand-painted walls of La Chapelle, which was once the family’s personal chapel. If you can’t fully relax without a soothing soak, be sure to book a Luxury Room for the polished freestanding bath tub. Of the 36 self-catering properties, La Maison du Jardinier is one of the most private; stay here and you’ll be the sole occupants of a standalone three-bedroom cottage that looks like a non-edible Hansel and Gretel fairy-tale cottage, complete with its own heated pool.

Poolside

The 30-metre-long outdoor infinity pool is heated from June to the end of September and family-friendly – little Smiths are welcome at any time. Oversized sunloungers frame the pool terrace, and in the summer there’s a poolside bar too. From 1 June to 30 October, guests can splash about or swim leisurely laps from 9am to 9pm; during the rest of the year, the pool closes at 6pm (8pm on weekends). There’s also a 50sq m indoor hydrotherapy pool in the spa; it’s for guests aged 16 and older only, except during school holidays when it hosts child-friendly hours once a day.

Spa

Light-filled Mediterranean-style Le Spa has four treatment rooms, an indoor/outdoor solarium with a 12-metre heated hydrotherapy pool, an aromatherapy hammam and sauna, relaxation area, and a vineyard-view hot tub. Choose from an internationally-inspired range of facials, massages, body wraps and beauty treatments. Follow a Moroccan argan massage with a skin-renewing Balinese-flower facial, then relax in a cocoon-like double lounger on the spa’s terrace. Full day use of all spa facilities is included with all treatments lasting 50 minutes or more (€25 a person a day otherwise), and in-room massages can be arranged on request. Opening hours vary throughout the year, book ahead to avoid any disappointment.

Packing tips

Bring your swimsuits, hiking shoes, and a holiday read to trade in the château’s library; leave extra space in your luggage for a bottle of Languedoc red.

Also

Just ask and picnic backpacks stuffed with cheeses, cold meats, sandwiches and other delicacies can be arranged, complete with integrated coolers for perfectly chilled picnic wine.

Children

All ages are welcome. There’s all manner of big-ticket baby kit and activities – biking, swimming, nature walks, tennis and more – for younger guests. Babysitting (€25 an hour) can be arranged on short notice too.

Food and Drink

Photos Château St Pierre de Serjac food and drink

Top Table

In cooler months, go for a table by the window in the dining room, otherwise, head outside to the garden-view terrace.

Dress Code

Make yourself at home.

Hotel restaurant

The Restaurant Château St Pierre de Serjac serves French cuisine with a Mediterranean accent; the seasonal menu uses fresh vegetables and herbs from the kitchen garden. Choose from the à la carte or the chef’s set menu; both change often, but past mains have included seared sea bream with fresh-herb gnocchi and chorizo crisps, and beef fillet with gratin potatoes. Past dessert picks have included chocolate ganache with tonka-bean cream and citrus-y honey-and-lemon gateau.The Continental buffet spread includes freshly baked pastries and bread, fruits, jam, eggs, cheese, and hot drinks. Guests staying in the self-catering properties can pick up freshly baked bread and pastries from the main château at 8am. In summer, the kitchen will also prepare barbecue packs of meat (steaks, spicy sausages, burgers and chicken sourced from the best local butchers), and to-go pizzas for easy in-house dinners are available year round if pre-ordered.

Hotel bar

The cosy bar is set in the château’s original drawing room. Sample the estate’s wines or have the mixologist extraordinaire shake up your cocktail of choice; in the winter, make a beeline for the silvery velvet sofas by the crackling, 19th-century marble fireplace.

Last orders

Breakfast is served from 8am to 10.30am, lunch from noon to 2pm, and dinner from 7pm to 9.30pm.

Location

Photos Château St Pierre de Serjac location
Address
Château St Pierre de Serjac
Immeuble Le Forum 16 Avenue de la Voie Domitienne
Béziers
34500
France

Château St Pierre de Serjac is in the Languedoc region, within easy reach of Mediterranean beaches and the towns of Pézenas and Béziers.

Planes

Regional flights land at Béziers airport, a little over 30 minutes away by car, and Montpellier airport is just over an hour’s drive away. Flights from across Europe land at Nîmes and Avignon – 90 minutes and two hours away, respectively. Call our Smith24 Team and they’ll happily sort out your flights and transfers.

Trains

TGV trains from London St. Pancras (via Paris or Lille) and Barcelona pull into Béziers train station, which is a 30 minute’s drive from the hotel.

Automobiles

Your own set of wheels can come in handy if you plan to visit the nearby beaches and towns. Follow the A75 from Paris or the A9 from Barcelona or Montpellier, or the A61 from Toulouse or Bordeaux; there’s free on-site parking at the hotel.

Worth getting out of bed for

Challenge your travel companion to a tennis match or game of petanque, stroll around the estate in search of the perfect picnic spot, or borrow the hotel’s mountain bikes and venture into the countryside. Yoga classes can be arranged for limber guests; other fitness classes and personal-training sessions are available on request, too. Outdoor enthusiasts can fill their days with horse riding, sailing, hiking, rock climbing, kite surfing and kayaking, and laidback bibliophiles can take advantage of the hotel’s take-a-book, leave-a-book policy. Check out the local markets – in Pézenas on Saturdays, from 9am to 1pm, and in nearby Béziers on Sundays – for pungent French cheeses, charcuterie, fresh fruit and vegetables, and flaky pastries. Water-babies have their pick of belle French beaches: sandy Serignan has a beach club, and family-friendly Valras Plage has a playground, watersports, and drop-in kids’ club; both are 35 minutes’ drive from the hotel. Looking for an even grander château? Hop in a hire car and head to World Heritage Site Carcassonne, just over an hour away, to marvel at one of the world’s best examples of a mediaeval castle. 

Local restaurants

For an informal dinner at L’Entre Pots, potter over to Pézenas (a 15-minute drive from the hotel), where you can enjoy traditional, seasonal French cuisine in a pretty courtyard setting. Ingredients are locally-sourced: vegetables come from a gardener in Bessan, meats from a butcher in nearby Nissan-lez-Enserune, and fish from the auction at the Halles de Sète. In Béziers (30 minutes away by car), award-winning chef Pierre Augé and his wife serve a creative menu at La Maison de Petit Pierre that draws a crowd; book well in advance for dinners (served Thursday to Sunday) or lunches (served Monday to Wednesday). At lakeside L’Auberge du Presbytère, you’ll find lighter local meals. Ask for a table on the terrace, which looks out over Lac des Olivettes, and take an après-meal dip if you’re feeling daring. For a meal with Michelin pedigree, book dinner at gourmet restaurant Octopus; the menu experiments with traditional Gallic grub.. There’s also a selection of fantastic cheeses and an impressive wine list to pair them with. 

Reviews

Photos Château St Pierre de Serjac reviews
Rosie Birkett

Anonymous review

By Rosie Birkett, A lot on her plate

As someone who has, for the majority of my adult life, been in love with the uniquely grown-up charms of boutique hotels – fuelled in no uncertain terms by this very website – I’ve been deeply reluctant to face up to the fact that, as a parent now travelling with a little one (we’re in the toddler phase), stylish hotels just aren’t the same with tots in tow. 

Even if you’re in the fortunate position to really push the boat out with adjoining rooms and massive suites, many luxurious hotels tend to lack some of the more boring things you just really need as a globetrotting parent, like a fridge big enough to store a proper bottle of fresh milk/endless snacks, or the cooking facilities needed to rustle up the very specific homemade meal that’s the only thing your child will eat at this moment in time. Eye roll. 

Which is why there usually comes a point when you’re travelling with kids, however hard you might long or indeed need to be waited on by room service or flit to the bar, spa or pool for a louche afternoon of being looked after, you admit defeat and end up planning self-catering holidays for the foreseeable. Also, I’m a food writer and I love to cook on holiday: it’s very often where I find inspiration and reignite my cooking mojo – especially in France. But more on that later. 

Imagine my sheer delight then, when I learned about the prospect of Château St Pierre de Serjac. Accessed via a dramatically sprawling, vineyard-flanked driveway that really makes you feel like you’ve well and truly ‘arrived’, this place is set on a historic wine estate within 200 acres of glorious Mediterranean countryside in south-west France. Brilliantly, it combines the best elements, service and amenities of a five-star hotel with all the family-friendly convenience of self-catering villas (but with a high-end-hotel spec), while still operating as a winery, and offering a launchpad from which to explore the treasures of the Languedoc. 

The very first thing we did on arrival was enjoy a gloriously chilled glass of the estate’s own lively and eminently drinkable chardonnay, which was brought to us in the château’s clubby lobby space during check in. A cheering reprieve after an epic drive, as was the news that it would be possible to book a babysitter one night while we made the most of the very good onsite restaurant, which serves up beautifully crafted, regional, seasonal dishes. And wine, of course, always local wine. 

Despite its stunning 19th-century architecture and plush interiors, there was a wonderfully relaxed feel to the hotel, which put us at ease immediately. It was also enthusiastically communicated that – aside from the adults-only Cinq Mondes spa, complete with hammam, indoor pool and garden – nowhere was off-limits for us as a family, and the stunning infinity pool that stretches out beneath the château was glistening temptingly from the lobby window, along with the notion of some imminent sundowners. 

A wine estate has existed here since Roman times, though the château and surrounding buildings were built by the renowned Bordeaux architect Louis-Michel Garros in the late 19th century, and St Pierre’s historic outbuildings have been lovingly converted into the most beautifully conveyed self-catering accommodation. Every villa but one has an outdoor terrace and slice of garden, and some even have their own private pool. 

Our two bedroom ‘Atelier’ had the most fantastic sense of space, with a huge double-height living area and floor-to-ceiling glazed doors providing spectacular views over the estate. Downstairs was a sleek, functional and fully equipped kitchen, living and dining area leading out to a shared terrace. We were impressed with the fact that the winery’s focus on sustainability and low-environmental impact threaded through into the self-catering element, with eco cleaning products provided, and clear instructions to use surplus water from the kitchen (created from washing-up, etc) on the garden outside.

Upstairs, the sumptuous bedroom had a high, sloping ceiling and arched, shuttered, wisteria-clad windows that looked out for miles over the vineyards and brought us the most incredible pearlescent sunsets. And – perks of travelling with a toddler – breathtaking pink-haze sunrises. 

While there’s plenty to do on the estate – and I enjoyed a perfect pampering morning at the spa, with its lush herbal garden and peaceful treatment rooms – we couldn’t wait to explore the local landscape, and the hotel’s charmingly affable concierge was well cast in his role, suggesting some really achievable but fabulous things to do within the vicinity. Like a visit to the buzzy, nearby town of Pezenas – a 22-minute drive away – for market day. Pezenas is known for its antique and bric-à-brac shops, and it took a huge amount of self-restraint not to load us down with rattan rocking chairs and crackle-glazed ceramics. it’s definitely somewhere I’ll be returning to when we do have a French farmhouse to furnish. We visited in October, which, by the way, is still beautifully balmy down in Languedoc, and the market stalls, which overtook the entire town, were piled high with oysters, apples and still-muddy ceps and girolles. We loaded up with these, baguettes from the organic bakery, local eggs, butter, plaited arms of purple garlic and jars of fantastically fragrant local set honey, and cooked up a feast in our kitchen once back on the estate. 

The smell of wild mushrooms frying in foaming French butter with crushed cloves of violet-skinned garlic is an enduring memory of this trip. We enjoyed our market spoils for lunch on the terrace with a bottle of the St Pierre chardonnay (a steal at around 12 euros a bottle: we brought back a case), as our girl toddled around in just a nappy on the lush grass out the front. That afternoon, we headed to the pool for swims and sundowners, before calling in the hotel’s trusted babysitter (an adorable philosophy student with laptop in tow), while my husband and I moseyed over to the open-air restaurant for a brilliant meal cooked and washed-up by someone else, feeling well and truly like we were winning at this family-holiday lark. We vowed to return there and then. 

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Price per night from $125.36