Yes secrets black with wine, and gold with honey, landscapes of an almost brutal serenity piled one upon another with quixotic profusion, as if to provoke the historic confrontations which have made them significant, muddling up the sacred and the profane, the trivial and the grandiose with operatic richness, mesmerizing one!
—Lawrence Durrell, Caesar’s Vast Ghost
In the Luberon, there are towns, town-and-country, and country. Oppède is the essence of Provencal countryside.
Oppède wears the smile of light under long blue skies, a peaceful expanse of vineyards and farmland in the western end of the Luberon, cherished by its inhabitants for its idyllic Provencal scenery.
The commune of Oppède stretches southward from the main highway D900 that bisects the Calavon Valley near Coustellet up the slopes of the Petit Luberon. Attribute the tranquil aura of Oppede to this: it is a place people come to not travel through, yet one is minutes away from bustling towns and farmers markets.
The Domaine Les Roullets in Oppède goes one better: wine-and-country. Les Roullets is a vineyard cum luxurious “wired” bed-and-breakfast where guests revel in privacy along with the spatial sense of freedom of an estate.
From a small throne on which its main building once housed a small garrison (oppidum) in Roman times, the Domaine Les Roullets affords guests a panoramic view of the pastoral landscape, and the old semi-restored village of Oppède-le-Vieux built on the hillside of the Petit Luberon.
Guests can wander amidst a fruit orchard, olive orchards and wooded areas, or linger in a tree-lined courtyard, or take in Roman relics – a medieval washing area and a flight of stairs to an ancient irrigation system, and then indulge in contemporary comforts at a large heated pool or in an ‘orangerie’ (a guest lounge) has a frig with refreshments, Wifi and a CD player with an iPod docking-station.
The white-accented rooms also wear a smile of light; All have a smart contemporary décor, Ipod, double beds, satellite TV, bath and/or shower, bathrobes, slippers and AC.
The spaciousness of the rooms is expanded by a terrace or balcony, and a sitting area.
Associate a gem with Domaine Les Roullets and sapphire immediately comes to mind.
Basics:
Domaine Les Roullets, 305 A, Chemin de Fontdrèche 84580 Oppède, Tel 04 90 71 21 88, Website
All rooms are a maximum of two people, non-smoking, no pets nor children under 16.
The Domaine produces a “vin bio” AOC Côte de Luberon Rouge.
The multilingial owners of the Domaine are Dutch.
Directions: From Coustellet, take D2, then go east on D188, to a roundabout, to the opposite side in the direction of Ménerbes on D188, continue on Le Four Neuf, after a sharp right hand curve, turn right on Chemin de Fondrèche.