Château les Carrasses

Excellent location and concept. The castle with confortable, functional and clean apartments and villas is deligtful.. The castle is in the midst of the wine yards and it is sublime. The tranquillity and activities available make it a magical experience. On the downside, the service needs improvement, but nothing major, just some additional attention would be preferred.

We are new to area and looking for a nice dinner but Chateau Les Carrasses turned out not to be a good choice. Had we known this was first night open after a month closed we would have made a different choice. The place is gorgeous although dinning area is set up more as a bistro setting than fine dinning. The service was glacial even for European standards running at 2 hours and 45 minutes for three courses even though restaurant was 2/3 empty. Lady server was super apologetic and pretty good and one reason giving two stars instead of one. The male server was pretty ambivalent and seemed inconvenienced by our presence. The food was mixed with appetizers of tartufo cappuccino and squash being tasty although the later being uninspired. The cod entree as tasty and probably the best of the night. Their version of cassoulet was tragic… lack of texture, over cooked sausage and duck under temp. Profiteroles and chocolate desert also uninspired but chocolate sauce was very tasty. Wine was very good.

Wonderful, luxurious, and relaxing stay! Attentive and helpful staff. Quiet area where you can just spend the day amongst the small farm, wine estate, pool, restaurant/bar, picnic, table tennis, biking, etc. All exceeded our expectations with the additional surprising touch that made the stay even more enjoyable. We spoke mostly in French, but they communicate in English fluently. We stayed in the "La Grange" 2 floor villa, which had plenty of room - 2 bedrooms - 1 with balcony, 2.5 bathrooms, living room, full kitchen/dining, yard seating with a pool. There was even a washer. All worked very well - even the towel warmer. We drove to wonderful Narbonne, Béziers 30 min away. Further out 1.5 hours to the Pyrénées - Peyrepertuse, Queribus Château, Perpignan. 1 hr to the seaside Mediterranean city Sète, Montpellier. Driving there - enter from D37 where there are posted hotel signs. Don't just follow the GPS.

To be honest, I expected a chateau that would have more common rooms to pass the time, like a library, a games room or a room with plushy sofas, like other chateaux have. The one room where guests could go served as a reception and restaurant in one and lacked atmosphere. Plastic flowers and greenery definitely a no-no in an expensive lodging like this. Positives: - The food was simply perfect. Congratulations to the kitchen, every course that we had was excellent - The massage I had was fantastic, I absolutely recommend it. - Self-catering apartments that have everything that you can imagine for your stay. Probably the most complete apartment I have ever seen. - Possibility to have your breakfast delivered in a basket to your apartment - Our apartment had a great view of the vineyards and was quite secluded, although I can imagine that in summer with the kids club in front and the barbecue area close by, it would not be so quiet. Negatives: - We stayed in apartment 28 (maison du jardinier) and the shower in one of the bathrooms did not work properly. The water came out lukewarm. Luckily there is a second bathroom but you have to shower in the bath. - We had heavy rainfall and that same bathroom had water entering from the outside through the wall close to the floor. We had to put towels to prevent the water from coming in further into the bathroom. - This apartment has the main bedroom on the mezzanine ( big bed with 2 matrasses) but the bathroom is on the ground floor. - We had breakfast and dinner included, but noticed that the menu did not change in the 3 days we were there. I assume it gets changed once a week, There are between 2 and 4 options to choose from, but I can imagine that if you stay longer it would become boring. - 500 euro guarantee on arrival, which one week later is still being held. Tip: since these are self-catering apartments, there is an Intermarché in Capestang that is quite large, where you can do your shopping.