Take a vineyard vacation and explore the newest luxury wine hotels scattered throughout the world. Photo / Getty Images
More and more luxury hotels are opening in bespoke wineries throughout the world, elevating the usual vineyard experience. Here are the best new openings to enjoy a viticulture ‘flop and drop’, writes Michelle Tchea
The well-known saying by American philosopher Ralph Waldo Emerson, “Its not the destination but the journey”, doesn’t always stand true — that is, when wine is involved.
Finding an excuse to drink wine on vacation just got easier with a boom in what many now call wine tourism. Europe kick-started the trend with Germany and France pioneering the travel trend in the early 20th century — providing wine routes to discover Bavaria’s Palatinate and France’s Alsace region — sampling crisp, fruity and even dry rieslings as thirsty travellers moved from one village to another. Decades after, wine tourism has become cool again with the United States opening many reputable vineyards to the public with luxury boutique hotels, fine-dining restaurants and cool museums all attached to the family-run estates. Now, all over the world, wineries are tapping into the million-dollar travel trend — providing more than just a cellar-door experience but a designer boutique suite, exceptional dining experience and the opportunity to sample rare, vintage and age-old wines — for the ultimate weekend getaway.
Although some may think that a wine trip is all about getting drunk with your girlfriends or perhaps limited to only those who are professional sommeliers, eno-tourism — as they call it — offers more than long tasting sessions in dark and cold cellars, and a chance to get off the beaten track and explore lesser-known regions outside of familiar city walls like Paris, London and Geneva, as in the case for many of the world-famous wine regions like the Napa Valley in North America, Porto in Portugal and also Burgundy in France — bien sur! More than just wine, Mother Nature provides a marvellous backdrop to all the wine experiences on offer with eno-tourism now catering to arts enthusiasts, foodies, as well as nature lovers, with many vineyards offering a bit of culture, too, for their wine guests.
READ MORE: Ten ‘must-visit’ venues to add to your wine-trail itinerary
Here are the best luxury wine hotels to check into around the world.
Fifteen years ago Helen and Joey flew into the southernmost state of Australia and promised themselves they would help spearhead Victoria’s wine scene. After more than a decade of fine-tuning their wines and establishing themselves as one of Victoria’s premier wineries, a new chapter in the vineyard and farm welcomes the addition of 16 designer boutique rooms. There’s a lot to be curious about as a guest of the newly opened Re’em Boutique Hotel and Winery in Victoria’s Yarra Valley: there’s the Re’em wines, which include merlot and co-fermented cabernet sauvignons to sample to your heart’s content; more than 80ha of land to explore by foot (or bike) and of course, a fine-dining experience at the Re’em restaurant helmed by chef Abe Yang who surprisingly brings a very Chinese menu together. On it, you will find Hainanese chicken, dry-aged Buxton trout with soy sauce and ginger, and also crispy eggplant with punchy flavours to pair with Re’em’s experimental wines — definitely a place for the curious minded.
helenandjoeyestate.com.au/re-em-yarra-valley
If you are looking for a wine hotel where wellness and wine blend meticulously well, book yourself into SB Winemaker’s House and Spa Suites in Mendoza, Argentina.
Refurbished by enologist Susana Balbo and her daughter, the latest addition to Argentina’s luxury hotel scene is set in Chacras de Coria, a traditional vineyard region that has been urbanised and is now full of cool shops, boutiques and eateries. The winery is everything you want for a mother-and-daughter getaway: there are spa treatments, haute cuisine and of course, bespoke wine experiences touring the vineyard. The rooms are spacious and have every last detail looked after for every kind of traveller out there: all suites have steam rooms, sensation showers and even a massage table — if you need an emergency aromatherapy massage and can’t muster the energy to leave your private oasis. The hotel has a fabulous pool to relax in during the day, but be sure to stay indoors at night and enjoy the dining experience provided by the hotel, which has a 14-course tasting menu created by chef Flavia Amad di Leo fire up the grill — exceptional when paired with the family’s private collection of tasty wines.
susanabalbohotels.com/sb-winemakers-house-spa-suites-en
If you want to impress your friends, tell them you have visited Chateauneuf-du-pape. Often overlooked next to heavy weights Burgundy and Bordeaux, the smaller southeastern wine region in France sits silently in the Vaucluse region — making some of France’s best drops. The Hotel La Mere Germaine is a cute little hotel by winemaker, Isabelle Strasser who, along, with her husband, has rebooted the Luberon region — growing bold, ambitious and delectable wines. The hotel is adorned with the family’s personal art collection, many of which are from South Africa, and the staff are friendly with a lot of great advice on where to walk, sip and eat in the area. The 1-Michelin-star restaurant adjacent to the hotel of the same name, La Mere Germaine, is worth visiting and so is the hotel’s wine boutique just outside the hotel. If you want to stretch your legs a bit more, definitely visit one of Isabelle’s vineyards or head further afield to Chateau Mont Redon where a historical family estate still stands after more than 100 years in the wine business.
No list about wine hotels would be complete without mentioning Blackberry Farm. Possibly one of the most sought-after wine experiences in the world — everything at Blackberry Farm is to help sustain, revive and rejuvenate Mother Nature’s ecosystem — and of course, there’s great wine to be enjoyed in the process. Set on 1700ha of pastoral land, the rooms range from cosy and historical to grand and stately with 3-5-bedroom houses. Sitting by your own fireplace and sipping a glass of red from the Napa Valley can be a great experience in itself, but try to tear yourself away from your comfy armchair and head to the Barn to chat to the team about their 160,000-strong wine cellar. The estate has a Blackberry Farm’s Wine Programme, which helps both beginners and wine connoisseurs delve deeper into the mystical world of wine. Dinner is a pleasure and a must with meals described as “foothills cuisine” exploring the indigenous foods from the Smokey Mountain area.
blackberryfarm.com/about/location
There have been a lot of openings in Rioja, Spain, with the latest, Palacio de Samaniego by the Edmond de Rothschild heritage being one of the most intimate settings with both Garnacha and tempranillo on demand. However, if you want to combine art with your wine tour, you can’t beat staying at the Hotel Marques de Riscal. Located in the charming town of Elciego in Alav, the oldest winery in the region is also the most spectacular with the building designed by none other than Frank O.Gehry — known for his work including the Bilbao Guggenheim Museum. Yes, you can sample one or two bottles of the 400,000-strong cellar going from Rioja to Castilla y Leon and Ruedo, but what’s unique about the property is the vinotherapy — wellness treatments to help destress and calm the body using pure essences off the vine. The 1-Michelin-star restaurant, Restaurante 1860, is also great and a personal favourite of mine.
marquesderiscal.com/en/marques-de-riscal-hotel
Many Melbourne residents will remember Le Meridien to be their local late-night club, The Metro where booming techno music blared from large speakers, but gone are the days that this place catered to the young and thrifty with the new opening of 5-star lifestyle hotel Le Meridien. Rather than serving cheap and cheerful drinks to party-goers, the hotel has a very refined cocktail menu and expansive local wine list for theatre buffs who want a quick sip, drab or tipple before their evening show. There’s a 1930s-themed Dolly Restaurant with a strong local wine list that takes you from the Yarra Valley to the Barossa. Rosé lovers will love the hotel’s dedicated and expansive rosé list, which includes crisps and fresh to rare and vintage labels from both Australia and all over the world. The hotel in the “Paris end” of Melbourne is also a prime location for cool wine bars such as Old Palm Liquor — one of the pioneers of the Melbourne wine bar scene that offers an extensive wine list that takes you from the Yarra Valley to France’s Loire Valley and everything in between.
marriott.com/en-us/hotels/melmd-le-meridien-melbourne
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