Château Les Carrasses: An Honest Review

Last updated on October 7, 2024

A morning run through the vineyards, breakfast buffet on the terrace and a laidback pool day in the shadow of a wine chateau that looks straight from a Disney tale. Add a forest picnic, game of pétanque and evening BBQ, and you have a luxurious family holiday of dreams. Doesn’t it sound idyllic? We thought so too, so went there in August to find out if Château Les Carrasses lives up to its image…

We were hosted by Château Les Carrasses for two nights because we took some photos and video fro them. All opinions are of course genuine. I’m not in the business of filling the internet with fake reviews!

What’s Château Les Carrasses like?

Château Les Carrasses is a 19th Century wine estate in the Languedoc region of France. After years of languishing unused, it was refurbished in 2011 and transformed into a collection of luxury self-catering apartments and villas with the amenities of a hotel. The idea is that it’s an à la carte holiday where you can create a vacation that suits you with as much independence or interaction with the hotel as you like.

There’s an onsite restaurant, heated infinity pool, tennis and boules courts, vineyard trails and tours, and complimentary bicycles for exploring. Plus staff are on-hand 24 hours to help with anything you need. You could easily spend your whole vacation on the estate.

A special stay at Château Les Carrasses

The apartments and villas themselves are all fully equipped with kitchens, washing machines and all you need for an independent stay. They are stylish spaces with a modern farmhouse aesthetic that complements and picks up on the history of the chateau. Modern amenities, like blue tooth speakers, sumptuous robes, Nespresso machines, luxury linens and air-con are all included as standard.

You can either stay in an apartment/studio in the main chateau, or one of the villas in the property’s original outbuildings. All of the villas have an outdoor space with a garden or terrace and space to lounge and eat al fresco. Some come with a private pool, and they all sleep from 2-8 people.          

We stayed in one of the four, terraced ‘Les Maisons des Vendangeurs’, which have two bedrooms, a terrace and a garden. The villa was cool and spacious, and I loved the overall aesthetic of the villa. It’s the kind of place that would sit comfortably in a country house living magazine. And the outdoor area was a highlight. It was wonderful having a peaceful, outdoor space to ourselves where we could retreat whenever we wanted. And it was perfect for outdoor dining with a large table and picturesque setting.

Family holidays at Château Les Carrasses

Despite being a sophisticated property, Château Les Carrasses welcomes families with open arms and there’s plenty to entertain children. Visit the mini farm, swim, play in the games area, go for bike ride (kids’ bikes are available) or simply explore the gardens and grounds.

There’s even a kids’ club on weekdays during the school holidays when your kids can be fully taken care of for a few hours each day. And outside of that, there are still family activities, like guided farm tours, movie nights and crafts. Some are free and others at an additional cost. I loved the sound of an activity where kids can experience life as a wine grower, learning about the process in fun and interactive ways.

Our boys (age 4 and 6) loved the novelty of staying in a “castle” and could happily have played in the pool all day, where we were joined by many other families. In fact, if you’re travelling without children and looking for peace, I would suggest staying in one of the villas with a private pool as the communal one has a distinctly family vibe.

Parent-pleasing activities

For more grown-up pastimes, Château Les Carrasses is part of a working vineyard, so there are plenty of wine-related activities. Do guided tours, tastings and experiences, matching wines with cheeses or chocolate, and learning what it takes to be a winemaker. You could also simply take a bike and explore yourself, or have a picnic among the vines. Personally, I loved going for a morning run through the vineyards – a heavenly way to start the day. And I also saw many people taking tennis lessons.

Another personal highlight for me was the onsite wellness room, housed is in a restored shelter in a remote spot among the vineyards, once used for storing winemaker’s tools. I had the best massage of my life there, and you can also opt for other beauty treatments. It’s a perfect pick-me-up on a family vacation.  

If you want to explore further afield, Les Carrases is just over half an hour from beautiful Mediterranean beaches or the walled city of Carcassonne. And it’s around an hour from Montpelier. We only had two nights, but with so much to explore, you could easily spend a week or more based at the chateau.

Food at Château Les Carrasses

For longer holidays, the self-catering facilities of Les Carrasses are ideal, but I’d also urge you to try the restaurant. Have the breakfast buffet at least once – the homemade chocolate spread alone makes it worth the cost. And the views over the vineyard from the restaurant’s terrace are a stunning backdrop to every meal.

There’s an a la carte menu as well as special themed nights, like a BBQ on Sundays. Despite being vegetarian, we ate well at the BBQ where the plentiful side dishes and salads were more than enough for a full and excellent meal.

It was a little harder with the kids, mainly because they’re both vegetarian and also fussy. If your kids eat meat or fish, you’d be absolutely fine as there’s a kids’ menu with a fish fillet, burger or nuggets with chips and veg, plus ice cream for dessert. But for us, while the breakfast was a big hit with the kids, we didn’t find anything beyond fries for lunch for dinner. An easy solution, if you’re in the same situation as us, would be to self-cater, at least for the kids. And you can also order high quality pizza from a nearby restaurant, which is delivered to the chateau. We did this one night and ate it on the chateau’s roof, which was gorgeous.

A special place to stay in France

Château Les Carrasses is one of those special places where parents can experience the luxurious side of travel without feeling conspicuous  and like a nuisance. Having kids is the norm here, especially in the school holidays. And the chateau has put in place all sorts of thoughtful touches, from the mini farm to the kids’ activities, that make staying here a breeze. We only had two nights, which was enough to soak in its charms, but next time we’d stay for longer, perhaps combining it with a visit to one of the other Domaine & Demeure properties, which all come with the same ethos.

Let me know if you have any questions.

Usual rates start from €269 in a château studio or one-bedroom apartment (but, if you’re lucky, you can sometimes get deals for as low as €149 in one of the apartments in the low season). Book your stay here.

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