Les Sources de Caudalie

Built in the middle of the Château Smith Haut Lafitte vineyard in Pessac-Léognan, this is the hotel that gave the word vinotherapy to the spa industry. The Cathiard family put the first treatments together here in the 1990s using grape polyphenols from the estate; Caudalie the skincare company grew out of it, and the spa still draws on a natural hot spring beneath the property.

The buildings are a deliberate collage - a reconstructed tobacco drying barn, an orangery, a lakeside cottage - assembled around water and vines rather than in one block. There are sixty-odd rooms and suites, a Michelin-starred restaurant and a more relaxed bistro, and a cellar with the kind of Bordeaux depth you would expect given the address.

Most guests come for the combination of the spa and the wine. Tastings at the neighbouring château, harvest-time visits and cellar tours are arranged in-house, and Bordeaux city is about twenty-five minutes north. It runs all year, with the vineyard changing character completely between summer green and winter bare stock.