Torre de Palma Wine Hotel

The manor at Torre de Palma has records going back to 1338, and the land has been worked far longer than that. Next door are the ruins of a Roman villa, one of the most significant excavated in Portugal, with mosaics that ended up in the national museum. Whoever farmed here has been doing so for two thousand years.

The family who owned the estate in the twentieth century left after the Carnation Revolution of 1974, as many landowners did, and the buildings were abandoned for decades. It opened as a hotel in 2014 after a restoration that kept the whitewashed manor and its outbuildings while inserting new structures alongside, and the tension between the two is handled well enough that the place still reads as old.

There are 19 rooms and suites, and they vary a lot in register: some in traditional blue and white azulejo, others in dark, saturated, almost theatrical tones. The estate has indoor and outdoor pools, a spa, a library, a restaurant and a bar, and vineyards to walk through.

Horses are central here in a way they are not at most wine hotels. There are stables, riding lessons for adults, and a children's stable, which along with the pools makes this workable for families in a way that much of this category is not.

The wine is the other half. The estate produces under its own label and runs tastings and cellar visits.

The Michelin Guide gave it two Keys, which puts it in a small group nationally, and it is a member of Design Hotels.

Be realistic about the location. Monforte is in the upper Alentejo near Portalegre, not far from the Spanish frontier, roughly two and a half to three hours from Lisbon. There is very little nearby, which is either the point or the problem.