Domaine de Fontenille – 4*

REGION : Provence
ATMOSPHERE : Vineyards
STYLE : Luxury family hotel
CATEGORY : 4*
ROOMS : 16 rooms, 2 suites and 1 apartment

Country house amid the grapevines

In Lauris, in the heart of Provence, facing the Luberon hills and the Sainte-Victoire mountain, the Domaine de Fontenille is a house with blue-gray shutters that practically leans against the hill. Here is where you’ll fall under the charm of this ultra chic neo-holiday house imagined by Frederic Biousse and Guillaume Foucher. It was also here, a few years ago, that the duo started their collection of inspired addresses (Les Hortensias du Lac, 70 Hectares…et l’Océan, Domaine de Primard, Les Bords de mer..) and it shows. The spectacular bastide, built between the 16th and 19th centuries, has been renovated and furnished with singular care.

AS IN A FAMILY HOME, personal photos mingle with contemporary artworks, while designer lighting (Blackbody, Jjoo) play down the classical-Provençal style of the ensemble, as if it had come out of a painting by Bazille or Sisley. The 19 rooms and suites, all unique, open onto the park, its plane trees, century-old cedars and olive trees, offering its occupants a multitude of sun-drenched, living paintings in which nature, sovereign, calls for contemplation.

DON’T TRUST APPEARANCES. If everything invites to chill out, the Domaine de Fontenille is a hyperactive refuge that hides its hand well. Restored, the wine estate, several hundred years old, offers several oenological experiences and willingly slips its vintages, worked in the three colors (white, red, rosé), on to the table of the two restaurants of the domain. First on the menu of La Cuisine d’Amélie, named after Amélie de Savornin, the last owner of Fontenille, but also in the gastronomic restaurant, Le Champ des Lunes who gets his fresh vegetables directly from the park’s vegetable garden. A spa, pool, and multiple activities, organized on demand, complete the experience.

To do

GASTRONOMIC RESTAURANT- Le Champ des Lunes takes a poetic stroll through the Luberon region: trout is preserved in olive oil, roast squab is accompanied by black olives, and permaculture thyme is transformed into ice cream, powdered with cocoa.
BISTROT – The same Mediterranean sensibility at the second table, La Cuisine d’Amélie, where you can nibble on herb fritters, panisses, carrot soup with cumin and fresh goat cheese, roasted lamb with Garrigue herbs, catch of the day a la plancha…
TERRACE – The ideal place to have lunch in the shade of the secular trees, close to the large pool, while enjoying the concert of the cicadas.
SWIMMING POOL – Nice size and view on the woods: a refreshing dip awaits
SPA – Enjoy a hammam and three treatment rooms, one of which is outside, and Susanne Kaufmann’s custom-made treatments. Let yourself be pampered!
OENOLOGY – Visit the estate, introduction to wine tasting, stroll through the vineyards, have a chic picnic, meet with the master blender, assist harvest mornings… Take your pick!
ACTIVITIES – Fitness, yoga, horseback riding, biking, walks in the park or on the slopes of Sainte-Victoire…

The surrounding area

• Culture and heritage sites (Granet museum, Caumont hotel, Vasarely Foundation, contemporary art center Château La Coste, Lambert Collection…)
• Gastronomic food tour (La Petite Maison de Cucuron, Hélène Darroze at Villa La Coste, Le Francis Mallmann, Nadia Sammut’s Auberge de La Fenière…)
• Tasting and shopping for delicacies (olive oil, Confiserie du Roy René and Musée du Calisson, chocolate factory of Puyricard…)
• Hiking on the side of Sainte-Victoire, the regional natural park of Luberon or the Durance valley
• Water activities: canyoning in the gorges of Toulourenc, canoeing on the Durance river
• Golf (Port Royal, la Cabre d’Or, Sainte Victoire, Aix-Marseille, Bouc Bel Air)
• Strolls in the villages of the Luberon, in Gordes, Isle-sur-la-Sorgue, Lacoste, Roussillon or Lourmarin, in the alleys of Aix-en-Provence…