Montreval
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Montreval
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Aubris village, the Aubris Downs
A vineyard house with twenty-two rooms, a working cellar and a very good baker.
22 rooms and suites — From €640 a night
Maison Aubris is a vineyard first and a hotel second, and the order matters. The estate came to us in 2013 with its vines half-abandoned and its buildings entirely so. We restored the cellar before we restored the roof, which tells you something about how the decision was made.
There are twenty-two rooms across three buildings around a gravel courtyard: the main house, the old press, and a row of four cottages that were once the pickers' quarters. Nothing is more than two storeys. Nothing has a view of anything except vines, and that is the point.
Cut into chalk in 1804 and extended twice since, the cellar holds a constant twelve degrees without any mechanical help at all. Hugo Vasseur, who runs the house, was a winemaker before he was a hotelier and still spends September in the press house rather than the front hall. Guests are welcome down there at any hour, which is unusual, and occasionally regretted.
Table d'Aubris seats twenty-eight at one long oak table and serves one menu each evening, decided in the afternoon. There is no choice, there is no à la carte, and we ask about allergies at booking because there is no second option. It is the most divisive thing we do and the thing guests write about most.
Arrival
The house
Maison AubrisChemin des Vignes 1Aubris 3320Reservations for every house are taken centrally on +44 20 7946 0139.
Who runs it
Hugo Vasseur
Director and winemaker, Maison Aubris
What is here
Suites & villas
Room — 30 m²
Chalk-washed walls, a plain oak bed, and a window that frames nothing but rows of vines.
From €640 a night, for 2
Suite — 86 m²
The 1804 press house, with its beam still in place, a private cellar door and the best west light on the estate.
From €1,750 a night, for 4
The table
There is no Sérène at this house — treatment rooms, yes, but we would rather say so than call two rooms a spa. The nearest is at one of the other four houses.
A guest letter
“I dreaded the communal table and then stayed at it until half past midnight. I have since eaten at it eleven more times.”
Rosalind Ferrier, Verane
Three nights in the Old Press, September
Elsewhere
Lake Verane, the Verane Valley
The first house. A farmhouse, a boathouse and a long wall of glass facing the water.
38 rooms and suites — From €780 a night
Above Manda Cove, the Calanera Coast
Four terraces cut into the cliff, and a staircase of two hundred and eleven steps down to the sea.
41 rooms and suites — From €690 a night
Below the escarpment, the Sabaia Sands
Twenty-nine tented suites, one fire, and no light after ten except the sky.
29 tented suites — From €1,150 a night
Reservations
Our own team answers, not an agency. Rates fall on the fourth night and again on the seventh, which tells you what we would prefer.
