For fans of Daylesford, the organic farm shop that spawned a mini empire and changed the face of grocery shopping for the one-percenters, there is no greater treat than a visit to the mothership near Kingham in Oxfordshire. Here, in a cluster of immaculate farm buildings, you can browse an equally immaculate collection of life’s essentials — from homegrown carrots to $192 dinner plates and $256 jars of honey. It’s the rural dream writ so large that even the reassuringly expensive crunch of gravel in the car park is enough to spark lifestyle envy.
There is a downside, though: it’s in the Cotswolds. Beautiful region, yes, but, this year especially, largely freezing and wet. If only, you can’t help wondering as you pass the beautifully appointed outdoor dining spaces, there was a way to swap the clouds and cold for blue skies and sunshine.
As luck would have it, there is, and you’ll find it at Château Léoube, halfway between Toulon and St Tropez on the Côte d’Azur. Back in 1997 Carole Bamford, the driving force behind Daylesford, and her husband, the JCB chairman Sir Anthony Bamford, were looking for a house beside the sea and ended up, as you do, buying a 1,400-acre estate and vineyard with two and a half miles of coastline and two beaches, all centered around a 15th-century château.
Lady Bamford has spent nearly 30 years renovating the neglected estate, following her three watchwords of local, seasonal and sustainable. She now produces nearly 750,000 bottles of award-winning organic wine a year, the majority of it rosé, and 10,000 liters of olive oil from 14 varieties of olive tree.
There is also an extensive market garden and orchard that supplies Café Léoube, a chic beachside restaurant shaded by majestic pine trees and large white canvas awnings on the main beach, Plage du Pellegrin. With its shop selling organic linens, handwoven baskets and Provençal pottery, it’s like Daylesford, only with sand between your toes.
The wine (and olive oil) maker Romain Ott explains that there are 560 vineyards in Provence, but only four by the sea, and it’s the cooling breeze and extra minerality imparted by soil that once formed part of the seabed that gives Château Léoube wines their freshness and balance. He describes it as comparatively small-scale “vin de vigneron” as opposed to more famous and heavily marketed megabrands such as Whispering Angel, which produces nigh on a million cases. Château Léoube is already well loved by Jeremy Clarkson, the Beckhams and the rest of the Cotswold set, but is also well regarded in France too. So much so that the Macrons are rumored to stock up on the superior Collector rosé when they stay at the nearby presidential summer retreat at Cap de Brégançon, just around the bay. The estate has also attracted the attention of royalty. It was at Château Léoube that James Middleton got married three years ago, with the Prince and Princess of Wales and their children among the 50 guests.
It’s like Daylesford, only with sand between your toes.
You have to be friends with the Bamfords to get sight of the château, unfortunately, but you can hire the restaurant in early or late season for weddings and events, and anyone can visit the winery. For a more exclusive experience, about once a month Léoube hosts VIP tours, taking in the estate, and a parallel tasting of the best wines on the shady terrace by the poulailler (hen house to you and me, but fear not — this is a pretty stone affair that has been given the full Bamford makeover). Then you can be ferried in a fleet of Range Rovers to the restaurant for lunch. “We don’t communicate the cost,” says Jérôme Pernot, the estate’s charmingly evasive CEO, which I think we can take to mean “reassuringly expensive”.
The restaurant is ungreedily priced, though. There is a relaxed, boho vibe, especially compared with the more glitzy see-and-be-seen spots along the coast. There are sharing plates of homegrown vegetables with hummus anchoïade, ham and burrata pizzas, bowls of gnocchi covered in summer truffle, and fish grilled straight from the sea, with prices from $16 to $43 or so. The wine is barely marked up on the cellar price, meaning you can easily eat and drink for $43 a head, including a deliciously boozy baba made with the estate’s own gin to finish.
“We are not trying to reinvent anything,” Pernot says. “As with the wine, we get the flavor from the soil. It’s the complete opposite to St Tropez — it’s about luxury in nature.”
Tony Turnbull is the food editor at The Times of London and The Sunday Times. He is also the author of several cookbooks, including The Only Recipes You’ll Ever Need
