"Built into a pretty hillside, this 28-suite villa—an assembly of low-slung rectangles in natural stone with green-planted roofs—looks as though it may have sprung up from Mother Earth when no one was watching. The latest addition to the 600-acre Château La Coste, a wine estate and contemporary arts centre, it combines deep comfort with a minimalist, vaguely Asian vibe. Each of the big, valley-facing bedrooms is a luminous space with floor-to-ceiling windows and a vast terrace. There are gauzy white four-posters and all-marble bathrooms. Museum-quality art abounds (a Perriand bookcase, a Hirst painting) as do places to eat. Steps away is the glass jewel-box Louison and Le Salon, serving all-organic specialities such as chicken with olives and lemon-fennel tart. But the real star of the show here is the landscape, a wondrous vista of pines, oaks and distant foothills entirely in sync with the uncluttered aesthetic of the hotel." - Lanie Goodman, Sarah James
