Among the Pessac-Léognan vineyards of Martillac, where the Cathiard family's Smith Haut Lafitte estate has produced grand cru classé wines since the fourteenth century, a cluster of low-slung Gascon-style buildings constructed from reclaimed timber and local stone gives Les Sources de Caudalie its grounded, almost rustic identity. The property opened in 1999, conceived by Alice and Bertrand Cathiard as a vinotherapy spa resort built directly into the working château estate — the vines visible from virtually every vantage point, including the long limestone-paved pool terrace enclosed by clipped hornbeam hedging that appears in the images here. The interiors hold an appealing tension between the agricultural vernacular of the architecture and something more fantastical within the rooms themselves. One guestroom carries a large-format panoramic wallpaper in the nineteenth-century scenic tradition — tropical palms and distant temples rendered in muted greens and greys — paired with a bentwood Thonet rocking chair, crystal chandelier, and wide-plank oak floors that keep the mood closer to a cultivated private house than a resort hotel. The wine bar, fitted into a converted chai, deploys a striking piece of contemporary craft: a canopy of pale ash timber slats that cascades from the ceiling over the bar counter in undulating vertical fins, contrasting deliberately with the exposed brick walls and steel roof trusses of the original agricultural building behind it.

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Les Sources de Caudalie are located in the middle of Chateau Smith Haut Lafitte vineyards, only 15 minutes from Bordeaux center. The hotel also includes 2 restaurants and a Vinotherapie spa.