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By Mary Gostelow | Editor-in-chief of WOW.travel, the online magazine of kiwicollection.com
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Part of the 250 acres of idyllic countryside here is home to the 85-room resort with superlative facilities, including championship croquet, with a professional coach. Private dining offers an excellent selection - including a Plump Jack Winery Chardonnay Reserve - chosen by Director of Wine Education, Gilles de Chambure MS, who also offers tours of local wineries. You are in fact adjacent, too, to the 80-acre Napa Valley Reserve private membership club, where members 'own' rows of Cabernet Sauvignon and Merlot vines (and the resulting bottles), and enjoy exclusive events and in-club facilities, www.thenapavalleyreserve.com. Resort GM is Alain Negueloua.
Economist Alexandra Marnier-Lapostolle, and her husband, business consultant Cyril de Bournet, started this winery in partnership with the Rabat family in 1994. The four villas that form the lodge are called after the vines they grow, namely Cabernet Sauvignon, Carmenère, Merlot and Petit Verdot. One highlight is a tour of the highly-modern five-level winery, designed by Roberto Benavente: it is gravity fed, and exclusively used to mature the iconic Clos Apalta, for which French 'flying winemaker' Michel Rolland is consultant.
You cannot be closer to the vineyards than here, in one of the 14 semi-detached adobe-type suites set 100 yards from each other right in acres of vineyards planted with Bequignol, an Argentinian specialty (you also awake to views of the distant snow-capped Andes). Suites have working fireplaces (with second fireplaces on the open roof) and private plunge pools. There is a two-room spa, which includes a pair of bathtubs for soaking in red wine. The lodge is run by Cecilia Diaz, who owns it with her husband Martin Rigal.
Former ski champions Daniel and Florence Cathiard own Ch Smith Haut-Lafitte, planted with 150 acres of Cabernet Sauvignon and Sauvignon Blanc - and integral with the complex is the 49-room Les Sources de Caudalie hotel, run by GM Sebastien Renard. As well as wine tasting, cycling and swimming, leave plenty of time for treatments at its Caudalie Vinotherapie Spa. Such treatments as crushed Cabernet body scrub or Merlot wrap utilize scientific evidence that shows red wine and grape seeds contain polyphenol antioxidants, which keep arteries glowing with health, and stop the free radicals responsible for 80% of premature wrinkling.
Deliberately styled as a baglio - a big Italian estate house around a courtyard - the 88 rooms at this two-year old resort look out over flat fields planted with such local vines as Insolia (Ansonica) and Nero d'Avola. Most spectacular views are from the large rooftop terraces, with private pools, of the two third-floor penthouses. The resort, run by GM Paolo Sanavia, has a 21,000 sq ft Daniela Steiner spa, and indoor and outdoor pools, and a shuttle is provided to a private south-facing beach, with lunch restaurant, ten miles away.
Alex van Heeren bought this 500-acre estate - which dates back to 1694 - in 2004, and the Owner's Lodge now has five marvelous bedrooms by New Zealand's top designer Virginia Fisher (she also did van Heeren's Huka Lodge, outside Taupo). Relax in the big outdoor Jacuzzi and watch the sun set over the Cape wine lands and the estate's Chardonnay, Sauvignon Blanc, Shiraz and Cabernet vines. In the adjacent tasting room and restaurant, both open to the public, try the estate's Angels Tears and premium Grande Provence wines.
The Chairman's Suite, a separate villa that is part of the 130room Lodge (GM Kate Williams) has a 300-year old hand-carved Rajasthan bed, ideal to wake up in and look out over the 13 acres planted with Sauvignon Blanc, Semillon and Cabernet. Robert and Sally Molines have turned an 1876 historic cottage on the estate into Robert's Restaurant, which serves freshest country fare to go with signature Estate wines, or labels from further a field.
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