The best multi-generational holiday in France? This Languedoc château estate has thought of everything
Five sunkissed hands clutch five tall-stemmed wine glasses, swirling their rosé contents as they’ve been taught, before each carefully takes a sip and considers their verdict.
“Like popcorn,” says one taster. “Like... burnt toast?” suggests a second. “It reminds me of Ribena!" declares the third, downing the rest of her glass in one.
The trainee sommeliers can be forgiven for comparing expensive tipples to a ruined breakfast or blackcurrant squash, for they are six, nine and 11. They’re my children, tasting single varieties of grape juice on a ‘little wine lovers’ tour in Château Capitoul's 64 hectares of vines. They’ve toured the steel fermentation chambers, learnt about different vine leaves and grape varieties, and had a proper education in the alchemy of Languedoc winemaking - the latter at a tasting table beside vast oak casks holding last year's Vignobles Bonfils vintages.
It was a highlight of our perfect multi-generational holiday in this spectacular south-of-France estate. Fifteen minutes from Narbonne, ninety from our Ryanair-serving airport at Toulouse, Capitoul's Irish owner Karl O'Hanlon told me how he and his wife Anita built their hotel, villa, spa and vineyard estate to solve the problems they’d always faced as travelling parents. After a week here with my three children, husband and mum, I understood exactly what he meant.
Inside our four-bedroom villa — stylish but genuinely family-friendly — we could order croissants from the hotel's restaurant for breakfast, head there ourselves, or stock up from local markets (and Carrefour). When we wanted peace and - well, not quiet, but the exclusive chaos of our own family - there was a gorgeous private pool, and vast terrace with rattan sunloungers and views across pinstriped vines sloping down to the Bages lagoon. We later saw flamingos pecking the seagrass that gives them their pink hue in the shallow water. Beyond them, on clear days, stood the snow-capped Pyrenees - a view we adults gazed at while the kids asked us to watch their underwater roly-poly “just one more time.”
And when the kids wanted to make friends, there was a central infinity pool, flanked by olive trees, where they could meet the mix of French, English and American families, or hit the brand-new wooden playground. A yurt in the shade of the pine trees is home to a kids' club for four-to-12s during the French school holidays - it was closed during our May half-term visit, which was a mild disappointment, though the wine-tasting experience and other activities filled the gap.
We made frequent use of Château Capitoul’s free extras: a tennis court with decent rackets and balls; a court for pétanque, and large number of well-maintained bikes to borrow (with helmets and locks). We headed out early before the sun shone too fiercely for a canalside ride to Gruissan or Narbonne, returning for late breakfasts on the terrace feeling unreasonably virtuous.
Our villa - like the other 43 on site - was built in the style of a traditional Languedoc stone farmhouse, then finished with vintage chandeliers, dove-grey linens and marble floors: it felt both rooted in its place and luxurious. The fully-kitted-out kitchen opened onto a shaded terrace and the estate itself is set in gardens with over 1000 varieties of Mediterranean plants.
There was plenty of space for us all to relax without the generations grating on each other, and Capitoul has thought of all the non-glam but bloody useful stuff too: a Nespresso machine, highchairs, and washing machine with powder. Is there a more sandwich-generation satisfaction than returning home from holiday with suitcases of already-cleaned-and-sun-dried clothes?
There's also a hotel with eight bedrooms in the 130-year-old château itself, though the villas offer the best of both worlds — the kitchen made poolside lunches and barbecues feel fairly effortless, but even easier meals were fifty metres from the front door at Asado, a brasserie with a wood-fired grill and a terrace overlooking the main infinity pool and lagoon.
It was almost as lovely to get dressed up for dinner as it was to gorge on baguettes and croissants in our pyjamas on the villa’s terrace. Barbecue meat packs and picnics were available at reasonable prices, too. So it was tricky to lure the children out of Château Capitoul's grounds: solemn pledges of ice cream were deployed.
But there’s so much to explore on its doorstep - though the hotel feels like a wonderfully isolated retreat, it’s within a half-hour drive of Languedoc gems such as the remarkable Fontfroide Abbey and the stunning walled city of Carcassonne. Even closer to base, we spent a brilliant morning learning to sail in small catamarans at Akila Watersports on calm lake, Étang de Mateille, quickly organising ourselves into a girls-versus-boys race.
A five-minute drive took us to the old city of Gruissan, where we hired e-bikes and kids' bikes from Trott Up, and rode across vast beaches to pink salt flats, huge flocks of flamingos watching as we crossed narrow inlets and wound through fishermen's villages, before stopping for an Orangina in the sun.
The short drive to Bages, an art-filled Mediterranean village perched on a rocky cliff above a lagoon, was worth it for the small galleries and cafés and narrow medieval streets. Dinner at La Table D’Oli in Gruissan was a tiny hidden gem of intricate vegetable flavours and Michelin-style saucing.
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Back at the château, the adults-only spa was perfect for an afternoon with my mum: sauna, steam room, hydrotherapy pool and a properly-French, very hands-on facial that made London's potion-layering equivalents seem fairly pointless.
In the evenings, the villa's kitchen came into its own when the youngest was knackered. We cooked with fresh tomatoes, new potatoes and fish from Narbonne's excellent daily market, debating whether the produce really did taste better here or whether it was just the backdrop. Otherwise, it was pizzas or steaks in Narbonne, followed by excellent ice cream at Glacier Marguerite in the picturesque Place de l'Hôtel de Ville.
Hotel stays with children can feel limited: parents wedged in a dark bathroom after lights out while kids sleep in the only bedroom. Villa holidays solve that problem but pile on the cooking and cleaning. At Château Capitoul, somehow, it's neither. It's one of the best multi-generational bases we've found in Europe.
