If you haven’t entered any dates, the rate shown is provided directly by the hotel and represents the cheapest double room (including tax) available in the next 60 days.
Prices have been converted from the hotel’s local currency (USD280.00), via openexchangerates.org, using today’s exchange rate.
A stay at Comarca Las Liebres is a bit like being invited to your incredibly tasteful friend’s holiday home in Uruguay’s wine country, with free-flowing samples of said wine straight from the vines, paired with organic garden-grown dishes. With just four sumptuous suites, spread across the main 1920s building and a garden outhouse, it’s an incredibly intimate affair – perfect for group gatherings if you’re looking for an exclusive getaway, or to simply be left to your own devices, soaking up the verdant grounds in blissful seclusion – with just a few darting hares (from which the hotel takes its name) for company.
11am, but flexible, subject to availability. Earliest check-in, 3pm.
Prices
Double rooms from £223.72 ($280).
More details
Rates include an à la carte breakfast, made from scratch each morning using ingredients from the hotel’s organic vegetable garden.
Also
There’s an entrance ramp at the main house, plus ground-level suites (with a specially-designed bathroom for guests with mobility issues).
At the hotel
Vineyard, vegetable garden, tea room, library, private dining room, lounge, charged laundry service, plug adaptors, and free WiFi. In rooms: TV, Bang & Olufsen speakers, air-conditioning, gourmet minibar, coffee machine, organic tea-making kit, and the hotel’s own bath products.
Our favourite rooms
Each suite in this four-key property is individually decorated, and almost equally impressive in size and styling. The two suites in the main house feel slightly more elevated, not just because they’re on the upper floor – but their sumptuous furnishings, wood-burning fireplaces, and shared terrace with sweeping views of the grounds (and towards Buenos Aires on a clear day) make Skyla and Juanita feel like the master sleeping quarters. Augustine and Sebastian are housed in the standalone Casa del Aljibe within the grounds, and make for a more secluded, rustic stay – think vaulted ceilings, wooden beams, and freestanding tubs.
Packing tips
Try to get your hands on some merino wool while you’re here, Uruguay is said to produce the world’s softest yarn. We’d also recommend saving some room in your suitcase to raid the hotel’s pantry of homemade produce, including wine, oils, and seasonal jams.
Also
Experienced European palates might recognise the hotel’s wine blend of merlot and gamaret, a hybrid grape often found in Switzerland’s Vaud region. If not, you’ve got something up your sleeve to impress the sommelier with.
Children
Welcome, and there’s a kids’ menu in the restaurant if you’re dining as a family.
Sustainability efforts
In among the vast swathes of greenery which surround Comarca Las Liebres lies a 4,000 square-metre organic vegetable garden, which supplies the restaurant with farm-fresh fruits, vegetables, and herbs. Almost everything you’ll eat is homegrown and homemade, including pickles, preserves, olive oil, and wine from the estate’s vineyards. Following the same slow-living philosophy, bathrooms are stocked with the hotel’s own brand of organic products.
By the crackling fire in the winter, and beneath the trees on hot summer evenings.
Dress Code
Whatever you’d wear to a winery, with a hint of gaucho chic (please tell us you packed at least one poncho).
Hotel restaurant
With Uruguayan household name and celebrated chef Hugo Soca at the helm, Las Liebres restaurant draws discerning foodies and wine lovers to its bucolic setting from around the country (and beyond). Inspired by his grandmother’s cooking, Soca champions traditional homemade dishes – all lovingly prepared using ingredients grown in the hotel’s organic vegetable garden, with wines produced straight from the surrounding vines. The menu changes with the seasons, yet always features daily specials like vegetable soups, local cheese boards with Soca’s own chutney, made-from-scratch pastas filled with just-picked vegetables, and locally-caught fish plated up with garden greens. Save room for something sweet, the restaurant’s signature dulce de leche dish is not to be missed – a creamy concoction of roasted banana ice-cream topped with almond garrapiñadas (a sugary Uruguayan street food made from caramelised nuts). You can also take afternoon tea (available Friday to Sunday) in the garden-facing lounge, tucking into freshly baked cakes, pastries, and sandwiches, slathered in the hotel’s own jams and cream. Planning a dinner party? Ask about the Don Miguel room, an exclusive dining space for private hire overlooking the gardens.
Hotel bar
Order a bottle of Las Liebres Cabernet Franc (a fresh, aromatic wine produced onsite) to crack open in the English Living Room, a low-lit lounge for pre- and post-dinner drinks, settled on lived-in leather sofas cosily hemmed in by antique cabinetry.
Last orders
Breakfast is served from 8am to 10.30am. Lunch is from noon to 3pm (Tuesday to Sunday), and dinner from 8pm to 11pm (Tuesday to Saturday). The restaurant is closed on Mondays, but can open on request for guests with a little notice.
Comarca Las Liebres sits on the vineyard-wrapped outskirts of Colonia del Sacramento in south-western Uruguay, in rural seclusion, yet just 10 minutes from the Old Town.
Planes
Colonia International is the closest airport, just 20 minutes by car from the hotel. You’ll be able to connect to larger hubs like Montevideo (two hours’ drive from the hotel) and Buenos Aires from here. Comarca Las Liebres can help with transfers, starting from US$35 (for four passengers from Colonia, one-way) and US$300 (for four passengers from Montevideo, one-way).
Automobiles
We’d recommend hiring a driver to visit Colonia’s many wineries (especially given Uruguay’s zero-tolerance law). If you do decide to get behind the wheel and explore the surrounding farmland, there’s free parking at the hotel to come back to.
Other
Colonia del Sacramento is just over an hour’s ferry ride from Buenos Aires across the River Plate, with daily crossings operated by Buquebus and Colonia Express.
Worth getting out of bed for
There’s much to keep you within the idyllic grounds of Comarca Las Liebres, seeing as you don’t need to stray far for vineyard tours and wine tasting with one of the hotel’s knowledgeable sommeliers. Rolling farmland aside, the Unesco-listed town of Colonia del Sacramento is just a 10-minute drive from the hotel, if you’re looking to combine countryside relaxation with some culture-filled action. As one of the oldest towns in Uruguay, its cobblestone streets and bougainvillea-covered squares are filled with post-colonial buildings painted in a pretty pastel palette – particularly along Calle de los Suspiros (the ‘Street of Sighs’) and in the Barrio Histórico (presided over by the towering lighthouse, built atop the ancient ruins of the San Francisco Xavier convent). This history-steeped setting has given rise to eight museums, including the Museo de Azulejo – a quaint exhibition space which displays tiles and ceramics inside a 17th-century Portuguese house overlooking the River Plate. Take a picnic to the river’s sandy banks, or head to one of Colonia’s beaches for a sun-drenched day of dips in the Atlantic – Playa Real de San Carlos and Playa Fomento are local favourites.
Local restaurants
The hotel’s restaurant should keep foodies more than satisfied with its farm-to-table offerings, but if you’d like to head into town, we’d recommend Blanco y Negro in Colonia del Sacramento’s centre (for classic Uruguayan dishes like meat-stuffed chivito sandwiches, plus live jazz music).
Local cafés
Make like the locals and take a mate break (or tereré, the cold version of South America’s popular herbal brew). Look out for the deep red doors of Albertine, a chic café and bakery in the Barrio Histórico where you’ll find buttery croissants, sourdough bread, and handmade pastries – all fresh out of the oven each morning.
Local bars
More of a bodega than a bar, El Buen Suspiro is a rustic winery which makes its own liqueurs, cheeses, and preserves which can all be sampled in various tasting menus – served by the stone fireplace in the candlelit cellar, or out in the palm-fringed garden.
Every hotel featured is visited personally by members of our team, given the Smith seal of approval, and then anonymously reviewed. As soon as our reviewers have returned from this intimate hotel in Colonia del Sacramento and unpacked their estate-grown olive oil and organic wines, a full account of their nature-immersed break will be with you. In the meantime, to whet your wanderlust, here's a quick peek inside Comarca Las Liebres in Uruguay…
Day-trippers have been crossing the River Plate from Argentina to Uruguay’s history-steeped Colonia del Sacramento for some time now, but Comarca Las Liebres gives travellers several reasons to linger a little longer in this lesser-trodden terroir – venturing beyond the Unesco-listed city walls into Colonia’s vine-clad countryside to indulge in some pastoral pastimes. It could be as simple as sitting out on the tree-lined patio with a glass of Las Liebres’ homemade wine in hand, or picking herbs from the organic gardens to infuse your bedtime brews with. As the colder nights set in, there’s ample reading material in the well-stocked library if you’d like to curl up by the fire with a page-turner, plus a projector for movie nights if you’re a Skyla Suite resident. Log-burners and clawfoot tubs take the cosiness levels up a notch, and there are various lounges to hunker down and make yourself at home in – with a garden-to-plate menu to tuck into throughout the day.
