Hotel Alert: Herdade Malhadinha Nova (Alentejo, Portugal)

Malhadinha is one of those rare, soulful properties that's family-owned and run. The family owns the biggest wine retail and distributor business in Portugal, and they built this property from scratch. Like many Portugal luxury hotels today, it started as their family home that they expanded into a hotel. It had already been operating as a 10-room hotel that was mostly popular with locals, until they decided to invest a lot in infrastructure and international marketing just before the pandemic.

Getting there: Easy 2-hour drive from Lisbon airport; easy to combine with either Comporta or Algarve, both about 1 hour away. You'll need your own car, preferably an AWD, as getting around the hotel requires driving on dirt roads.

Why go: Country estate with a lot of character and tons of activities that's easy to include in a Portugal itinerary, especially if not heading north to the Douro Valley (where my top country pick is the Six Senses).

Food & wine: The Douro Valley is the more famous wine region, which is the DOC for port. Alentejo wines are less known, but Malhadinha has many award-winning wines grown and developed in the property's vineyards, which spans 450 hectares. In fact, its wines are among the most well-regarded in the country, owing to the family's history with wine before hospitality.

Because it's Relais & Chateaux, you can count on the wine and food being amazing, especially since this is very much a farm-to-table experience, with most of their ingredients sourced from their many different animal and produce farms — they even have black pigs!

Activities: The family is often onsite and very much involved in the property's offerings, which is why I say it's quite a soulful property. The owners help develop their wines; the son is the country's dressage champion and so the stables onsite are the family's award-winning horses, with dressage lessons taught by their champion instructor. You can of course opt to just do a plain old horseback ride through the beautiful wildflower meadows surrounding the hotel:

There's also a pottery studio onsite, where the owner, Rita, makes her own pottery and you can choose to have a lesson with her instructor. They dig up the clay from the property and fire it in kilns onsite. These and TONS are why I think this property is quite special, especially for families. There's even a hot-air balloon ride in the summer, plus quad bikes, archery, fishing, paintball and so much more, and they are all really reasonably priced. Even my 60-minute massage in their lovely new spa was only €80.

Rooms: The accommodations are perfectly lovely and comfortable. They have villas that are great for groups and the 10-room original hotel is great for a buyout.

The rooms and villas are very different in design and layout, and they are spread quite far apart (nothing is within walking distance). The hotel does transfers in their jeeps.

Keep in mind for: Country estate with lots of activities. Think of it as a more affordable and less corporate Gleneagles.

This trip report is part of our ongoing series on travel to Portugal. In need of further inspiration? Check out Clara Raposo’s guide, A Day in Cascais, Portugal.