Château d'Esclans

Few Provence estates let a visitor taste a whole price ladder in one sitting. The Integral flight pours all seven wines — The Pale, The Beach, Whispering Angel, Rock Angel, Château d'Esclans, Les Clans and Garrus — for EUR 20 per adult, in 20 to 30 minutes (July 2026). Garrus alone retailed above GBP 100 in July 2026, according to the drinks business.

Two guided visits are published, both private. The Discovery visit walks the production cellars with a guide and ends in a tasting of five rosés, taking about an hour, at EUR 15 per adult. The Prestige visit covers the same ground and pours all seven wines, Les Clans and Garrus included, over a bit more than an hour, at EUR 25 per adult (July 2026). There is no restaurant or catering on site.

The seven-day 10:00-19:00 pattern runs only from 1 May to 30 September. From 1 October to 30 April the estate is closed on Sundays and shuts at 18:00 Monday to Thursday. Harvest has traditionally run through September, picking from sunrise to noon, though in July 2026 the estate said it expected to start around 10 August. Children enter free, but strollers are barred from the cellars.

Book through the estate's visiting page, which carries a booking link for each tier; travel agencies, hotels and other corporate bookers are routed to a separate channel. Hours are 10:00-19:00 seven days a week from 1 May to 30 September; from 1 October to 30 April the estate opens 10:00-18:00 Monday to Thursday, 10:00-19:00 Friday and Saturday, and is closed on Sunday. Tastings are 18 and over, and only rosé is poured.

The address is 4005 route de Callas, 83920 La Motte en Provence. France's national address base puts that street number at 43.52958 N, 6.567743 E, roughly three and a half kilometres from the middle of La Motte, a commune of 3,071 people. Come by car; the estate publishes parking, including spaces for reduced mobility. It is stop 13 on the French Riviera Rosé Route, three stops after Domaines Ott.

Château d'Esclans is a rosé estate at 4005 route de Callas in La Motte, in the Var, north-east of Saint-Tropez in Provence. Sacha Lichine acquired it in 2006; 2026 is its twentieth vintage. It sells guided cellar visits from EUR 15 and walk-in tastings from EUR 10 per adult (July 2026). Its wines are made under the Côtes de Provence appellation, recognised as an AOP in 1977.

Sacha Lichine sold his family's Bordeaux estate in 1999 and spent seven years looking for a Provence property, visiting 34 of them before buying the first one he had ever seen — Château d'Esclans, which he first set eyes on in 1994 and acquired in 2006. He told the Gentleman's Journal that bankers would not give him an overdraft and the trade told him rosé does not sell.

The estate sits on elevated land near the Gorges de Pennafort, twenty-five kilometres north-west of Fréjus, looking over the Esclans valley. LVMH's maison page records 240 hectares of vines. The wines are built on Grenache with Rolle, the grape called Vermentino across the Italian border; Cinsault, Syrah and Tibouren fill out the blends, which ran to 61 percent Grenache in the 2025 Whispering Angel.

The label above the wine name records where the fruit came from. Caves d'Esclans covers The Pale, The Beach, Whispering Angel and Rock Angel: Whispering Angel is sourced from vineyards around the Esclans valley and the wider appellation and picked at night, while Rock Angel mixes estate and bought-in fruit and splits its harvest — estate grapes in the morning, sourced grapes after dark. The Château d'Esclans label is grown entirely on the estate.