Château St Pierre de Serjac

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.