Château Lafaurie Peyraguey

You don’t have to know the whole backstory to have a guess at what kind of place Hôtel & Restaurant Lalique - Château Lafaurie Peyraguey is going to be. But this collaboration between Lalique, the venerable glassmaker, and Lafaurie-Peyraguey, the Sauternes winery that’s now owned by the Lalique Group’s chairman, is a unique one. With just thirteen suites, it’s modestly sized, but in terms of luxury, its ambitions are sky-high.

This is, after all, the first premier cru winery to open its doors to overnight guests, and it’s got 400 years of history to live up to. It’s been given a very thorough interior renovation, with plenty of help from Lalique, whose glass has found its way into more design elements than you might have thought possible. The look is a touch conservative, but not at all unstylish, and the suites, all individually designed, lack for nothing when it comes to comfort — you’ll be asked whether you prefer a firm mattress or memory foam, and your bed will be prepared accordingly.

As you might expect, they take their food and drink seriously here as well. Chef Jérôme Schilling presides over a restaurant whose inventive menu is painstakingly tailored to the estate’s sweet Sauternes wine. And the cellars, naturally, are first-rate, containing over a third of a million bottles, and not just Sauternes either — though there’s plenty of that too, including an 1895 vintage from the neighboring Yquem winery. It’s a relentlessly high-end experience, and given the hotel’s small size — especially in comparison to the scale of the winery and the Lalique Group — you’d have to consider it a labor of love.