Wine Resort Villagrande

Lovely gardens, infinity pool for guests. The accomodation has either a balcony or terrace and is private with beautiful views. Guests have their own lounge to share with tea, coffee and sweet snacks. Breakfast in our opinion after travelling now for 6 weeks was average. The restaurant at night lacked ambiance in our view, and we found the food a little underwhelming for the price. The location is great for Mt Etna and the surrounding area. We have given a score of 4 for the accomodation, however we thought the food was a 3, after eating at other restuarants/hotels. A good country establishment, however we probably wouldn’t call it resort due to the lack of facilities one being a bar.

What a scenic, peaceful and soul lifting experience at this beautiful winery resort near Mount Etna. After traveling to Rome, the Amalfi coast and Taormina, we thoroughly enjoyed winding down and relaxing at the beautiful Barone di Villagrande winery and resort for 3 nights. The setting, pool, ambiance and sweeping views of the vineyards are magical and our spacious suite with terrace was perfect! We also enjoyed an excellent food and wine pairing and a custom tailored breakfast each morning. All the staff were wonderful and Alfonso was very helpful in answering emails before our stay and giving hands on assistance on site. If you can't stay here, book a lunch or dinner food pairing. Highly recommend it! Here are some photo's!

Villagrande is special. There are four spacious rooms, three of which have a balcony with beautiful views of the vineyards, and sea far beyond. From the vineyard (be sure to walk through them), you have a beautiful view of smoking Mt. Etna. The wines are good, but to my taste, they are not the best Etna wines. Ask them to arrange a private tour of Biondi Vineyard, 20 minutes away. That was truly special, and I rate their wines in the 90’s. We had a 7 course wine pairing dinner at Villagrande. It was okay; the food was good, but not the most informative wine tasting . Ask for them to make a reservation for dinner at 4 Archi, a five minute drive. I’ve been to. Breakfasts were excellent with eggs, croissant, fresh fruit and tomatoes, and cappuccino. The staff was quite helpful and friendly, arranging our dinner and vineyard tour reservations, so important if you don’t speak Italian. It is well situated for drives to Etna, and it is just five minutes from the quaint, small town of Milo with a lovely piazza, local foods store, and a very helpful hardware store. The owner speaks French, which was helpful for us describing what we needed. I would love to return to this vineyard. The only negative issue that I include, so that you can plan better than we did, was that we checked ahead of time to be sure there were laundry facilities. We had been on the road for two and a half weeks and had to be sure we could do our laundry. When we arrived, we learned that the laundry was not self service, as we assumed, and the prices were a bit high, shall we say. We had a load of clothes. Four Euro for a t shirt would have been excessive, but that didn't matter since the dryer was broken. Our only option on a Friday afternoon was a laundry in the town, but that would keep us in dirty clothes for another three days. This doesn't take away from the specialness of Villagrande... just something to be aware of when planning.