Route de Roquefraiche, Provence
Rate on request
No payment now. A room preference is a request, not guaranteed availability. Personal confirmation within 24 hours.
Forget the beach clubs. The smartest summer in the south of France is spent inland, in the Luberon, and the smartest way to spend it is in somebody's country house: an old bastide, books on every surface, a few rows of vines and a lunch that runs until five. Every cultured Parisian seems to have a friend with a house like that. Domaine de Fontenille is for everyone who doesn't. It is no resort, and would be mortified to be mistaken for one.
It belongs to two men who know exactly what they are doing: Frédéric Biousse, who once ran a large fashion group, and the art historian Guillaume Foucher. They moved into this bastide while it was still half a ruin, lived with its quirks, and only then picked up the tools. Their creed is blunt: guests fall for imperfection, not polish. So the house is pale yellow with blue shutters, the plane trees are centuries old, carp idle in a great spring-fed basin, and sheep do the mowing between the vines.
Inside, this is unmistakably a collector's home, and a confident one. Foucher hangs the art himself, setting contemporary photographs beside antique busts and old prints, while the little gallery changes its exhibition with the seasons. Even the plates come from a local potter. The twenty-five rooms and suites refuse to match: parquet floors, Louis XVI chairs, quiet whites and beiges, views of the garden and the Luberon, a private terrace for the lucky. Not one of them looks like a hotel room, which is exactly the idea.
And the wine: forty hectares of it, farmed organically and poured at meals. The estate harvests some of its grapes by night, when the temperature has fallen, while visitors can join a harvest morning in season. They can taste the wines, picnic among the rows or go further and blend a cuvée of their own, then leave with their name on the label: the only souvenir in Provence that is entirely their own fault.
The company is the true luxury. This is no place for hen parties or poolside photo shoots, and nobody is in a hurry. Instead there are Parisians on a long weekend, retired couples who plan their year around exhibitions and vineyards, and couples who left the children at home. Dinner at La Cuisine d'Amélie, under the plane trees, comes from the permaculture garden and the cellar next door, and the talk is of books, shows and last night's bottle. Frivolous it is not. Solemn it is not either.
Charm has its price. Service can lag on busy days, breakfast costs more than it should, and nobody brings a club sandwich at midnight. There is currently no spa, though massages can be arranged in the room or in a garden treatment cabin. GPS may lose its nerve before the gate.
In Paris, friends with a house in the Luberon are a quiet status symbol. Fontenille goes one better: friends with taste, a cellar of their own and no intention whatsoever of asking anyone to help with the washing-up.
Since 1638
The first records of vines at Fontenille date from 1638, when the estate belonged to the Savornin family. The Cuvée Alphonse is named after Alphonse de Savornin, who built the house and laid out the park in the nineteenth century.
The bastide stands in a park of ten hectares planted with umbrella pines, cedars, cypresses and plane trees the estate calls a century old, with lavender and rosemary underneath. A long lawn runs from the house to a round stone basin and on towards the hills. Twice a week in summer, a yoga class is held out here on the grass.
La Cuisine d'Amélie sets its tables on a shaded terrace looking over the park to the Luberon hills, with a dining room inside the bastide for cooler days. The kitchen draws on the estate's permaculture garden and on growers within 20 to 50 kilometres, among them Domaine de la Corée for tomatoes. Outside guests are welcome on reservation.
The vines lie on the southern slopes of the Luberon above the Durance plain, in stony clay-limestone soil, and have been farmed organically since 2016 within the AOP Luberon. Grenache, Syrah, Cinsault and Mourvèdre go into the reds and rosés; Rolle, Grenache blanc, Marsanne, Roussanne and Clairette into the whites. The winery, built after 2013, works by gravity.
Superior rooms run from 25 to 34 m², and no two are laid out alike: some look onto the bastide's entrance courtyard, others onto a quiet green corner at the edge of the estate. One has its own entrance up an outside staircase, another is adapted for reduced mobility. The view south over the park begins with the Executive Park view category.
At a glance
Where
Route de Roquefraiche, 84360 Lauris, Vaucluse; on the southern slopes of the Luberon above the Durance plain; 5 minutes from the centre of Lauris, 10 to 15 minutes from Lourmarin; Aix-en-Provence and Aix TGV station about 45 minutes, Avignon TGV and Marseille Saint-Charles about one hour, Marseille Provence airport one hour, Avignon airport 1h15 by car. Transfers arranged by reception on request
Why this one
Forty hectares of organic vines.
25 rooms in a ten-hectare park.
Harvest mornings in September and October.
The Edit Notes
Rooms differ more by outlook than by size. The Executive Park view, Prestige Vue Parc and Prestige Duplex face south over the cedars to the Luberon hills and the village of Lauris; the duplex sleeps four. Superior rooms and the Executive Terrace look onto the entrance courtyard instead, though the latter has a private terrace. For seclusion, the Petite Chambre du Lavoir, in the old washhouse, opens onto the east gardens, and the Alphonse de Savornin suite has its own terrace and garden.
The house is not open every day of the year. From April to the end of October it opens daily; from mid-February to the end of March and from early November to mid-December it opens Thursday to Sunday only, and it closes from January until mid-February. La Cuisine d'Amélie follows much the same pattern. The pool is heated from late April to October, so an off-season visit works as a long weekend, not as a midweek escape.
Harvest mornings run only in September and October: breakfast on the terrace, three and a half hours picking with the team, the winery, a tasting and a picnic among the vines. The Master Assembler session, two hours for at least two people, ends with a blend of one's own and signed labels. The estate's shop lists it all year, but the date should be confirmed with the estate before a stay is planned around it. Tastings and vineyard picnics are booked the same way.
There is no spa at Fontenille for now, and no hammam or treatment suite to fill a wet afternoon. Massages and rituals with Susanne Kaufmann products are given by reservation only, either in the bedroom or in an outdoor cabin in the gardens, so they are best booked with the room. The room-service offer is listed as snacks, with no hours published; a late arrival is better planned around dinner at La Cuisine d'Amélie than around a tray.
The price question
The money buys what friends with a house in the Luberon would offer: a lived-in bastide, a large park, lunch under the trees and wine from the vines beyond the lawn. It does not buy a resort. There is no spa, the calendar shrinks out of season, the room depends heavily on which side of the house it faces, and the wine experiences are booked and paid for separately.
Book it for two or three nights between late April and October, in a south-facing room, with one harvest morning or blending session confirmed ahead and dinners at La Cuisine d'Amélie. A traveller who wants a spa day, round-the-clock service or a midweek winter break is better placed elsewhere or on another date.
Villa La Coste
Thirty-one suites on Château La Coste, an organic wine estate of some 200 hectares between Aix-en-Provence and the Luberon, with more than forty works of art and architecture along a four-kilometre walk.
Airelles Gordes, La Bastide
A house of more than five centuries in the village of Gordes, descending in terraces towards the Luberon: 34 rooms and six suites, four restaurants on site and in the village, and a vaulted spa with an indoor pool.
The Extra Edit
Confirmed with your quote
Something extra, from us.
Ask for a stay and a person takes it from there. Any hotel privileges that apply, and a personal Extra arranged by us, are confirmed with your bookable quote.
Tell us which Extra appeals in your request. Nothing is charged when you ask, and no upgrade is promised.
A drink, a meal or an experience: chosen by you, arranged by us.
A person confirms your request within 24 hours.
Rate on request
Personal confirmation within 24 hours