Spa Guide: Les Sources de Caudalie | Country & Town House
Country & Town House: Good Spa Guide | August 2013
Les Sources de Caudalie, Bordeaux
The spa is made from recycled local timber, as is the entire bucolic hotel
If you’ve heard that red wine can be good for you, then Bordeaux is a real tonic – and not just for quaffing the good stuff. Chateau Smith Haut Lafite makes outstanding wines that age beautifully, but its vineyards also hold secrets to looking and feeling young.
As Mathilde Thomas, daughter of the chateau owners, grew up, she started to learn about the antioxidant properties of grapes. The pips contain active polyphenols, and using all this knowledge she created the French cosmetics brand Caudalie at the chateau. Her home had a hot mineral spring too, la source, so the idea for a spa was born.
Thomas developed a range of spa products and treatments using crushed pips, fresh grapes, grape-seed and grape-blossom oils, and arriving at the Vinotherapie Spa you could be forgiven for imagining you are on the film set of Manon des Sources. The rustic wood-and-stone spa, and all the buildings that make up the hotel (the Boat House, Bird Island suite set on a picturesque pond with gliding swans, and two restaurants, one with a Michelin star) are constructed from local recycled farm timbers. So romantic.
Don’t miss: Relaxing in an outdoor ‘barrel bath’ surrounded by vines. You simply couldn’t be anywhere else but Bordeaux.
Book it: Doubles from €250, including breakfast.
+ 33 (0)5 57 83 83 83, sources-caudalie.com