The Shift Towards Staying In
Something has changed in the way discerning travellers plan their holidays. The best restaurants still matter, of course. But more and more, people who've done the five-star hotels are choosing to base themselves in a luxury holiday home and bring the experience to them. A private pool, a chef who knows your dietary preferences by day two, a wine cellar stocked before you arrive. It's not indulgence for its own sake. It's simply a better way to spend a week.
This isn't a niche trend. Villa rental has grown consistently over the past decade among affluent travellers who want privacy, flexibility, and something that feels genuinely personal. And the addition of premium experiences, particularly a private chef and curated wine tours, is what separates a truly memorable stay from just a nice house with a pool.
What a Private Chef Actually Does (It's More Than Dinner)
People often assume a private chef simply turns up in the evening, cooks a three-course meal, and leaves. The reality is far richer than that. A good private chef becomes, in a quiet way, one of the highlights of the whole trip.
Before arrival, they'll typically send a questionnaire. Allergies, preferences, the ages of children in the group, favourite cuisines, whether you'd like a big family breakfast or something lighter. By the time you sit down to your first meal, they already know you.
What unfolds over a week can range from lazy poolside lunches of grilled fish and local salads to a proper seven-course tasting menu on the terrace on your last night. Some chefs will take the children to the local market to pick ingredients. Others will offer an informal cooking lesson one afternoon. The best ones read the room completely.
The Practical Side: What's Typically Included
Most private chef packages at Trusted Villas cover breakfast daily and dinner four or five nights a week, with lunches available on request. Groceries are usually charged at cost plus a small handling fee, which keeps things transparent. You won't find a mysterious "kitchen supplement" added to the bill on checkout.
Tipping is appreciated but never expected. A good guideline is around 10-15% of the food costs for the week if you've been genuinely impressed. And honestly, you usually will be.
Wine Tours Worth Doing: Region by Region
A villa with a wine tour on the doorstep is a very specific kind of luxury. Not the sort where you're ushered through a crowded tasting room with 40 other tourists. The kind where a local producer takes you between rows of vines in the late afternoon light, opens bottles that aren't on any restaurant list, and sends you home with a case you couldn't find in any shop.
The regions where this works best are the ones where wine is genuinely woven into the culture of the place.
Tuscany
The Chianti Classico zone between Florence and Siena remains one of the world's great wine landscapes. Stay in a villa near Radda or Gaiole and you're within 20 minutes of estates like Badia a Coltibuono and Castello di Brolio, both of which offer private tastings by appointment. A good tour here runs three to four hours, covering two or three producers, and costs around €150-€250 per person depending on the wines poured. Worth every cent.
The Alentejo, Portugal
Less visited than the Douro, and all the better for it. The Alentejo produces some of Portugal's most interesting red wines, full-bodied and structured, with that distinctive earthy warmth of the region. Villas around Évora or Monsaraz put you right in the middle of it. Producers like Herdade do Esporão and Dona Maria offer genuinely excellent private experiences, and because the region hasn't been overwhelmed by wine tourism, you'll often have the winery to yourself.
Mallorca
It might surprise people, but Mallorca's wine scene has come a very long way. The Binissalem DO and the wines coming out of Sóller and the Tramuntana foothills are serious and worth exploring. Stay in a villa in the Raiguer region or near Santa Maria del Camí and you're perfectly placed. Bodegas like Binigrau and Can Axartell are small, family-run, and produce wines with real character. A half-day private tour with a local guide, including a vineyard visit and lunch, runs around €120-€180 per person.
Provence
The rosé. Obviously the rosé. But Provence also produces some underrated whites and a small amount of genuinely serious red wine. A villa in the Var or the Luberon puts you within easy reach of estates around Bandol, the AOC responsible for some of the finest rosé and red wine in France. Domaine Tempier is the name everyone mentions, but smaller estates like Château de Pibarnon offer more intimate visits. Pair a morning wine tour with an afternoon back at the villa pool and you've constructed a near-perfect day.
How to Build a Week Around These Experiences
The mistake people make is trying to schedule too much. A luxury holiday home is at its best when the pace is unhurried. Two or three properly planned experiences across a week will leave you more satisfied than a packed itinerary that has you back in the car by 6pm every evening.
A structure that tends to work well: arrive on a Saturday, spend Sunday settling in with your chef's first dinner. Monday or Tuesday, do the wine tour. Wednesday is yours entirely. Thursday, a private chef lunch on the terrace. Friday, the blow-out tasting menu. Saturday, departure. Simple, but it gives the week a rhythm.
For Families
Children change the calculus slightly, but only slightly. A private chef is actually more valuable for families than for any other group. The flexibility to eat at 6:30pm with the children, then have a proper adult dinner at 9pm, is something no restaurant can offer. Many chefs are brilliant with children and will happily involve them in preparation if they're curious.
Wine tours with younger children are probably best left as a half-day adults-only activity, assuming another adult or a babysitter can hold the fort. Most villas can arrange a trusted local babysitter with 48 hours' notice.
For Couples
This is where it genuinely gets special. A couple in a villa with a private chef has access to a level of romantic privacy that simply doesn't exist in any hotel. Dinner on the terrace with the view, candlelight, wine you chose yourself that afternoon at a producer who poured it from the barrel. That's hard to replicate.
Some villas offer a "couples package" that bundles a chef for the week with a wine tour and an in-villa massage session. Trusted Villas can put together bespoke versions of this for most destinations.
For Groups
A private chef is arguably most cost-effective for groups of eight or more. Split the chef's day rate across ten people and the per-head cost is remarkably reasonable. Groups also tend to appreciate the communal aspect: everyone around a long table, good wine, no waiting for the bill. It becomes the social heart of the holiday.
Choosing the Right Villa for These Experiences
Not every villa is set up for private catering. A kitchen designed for one or two people to throw together a quick pasta won't handle a chef cooking for twelve. When you're booking with a private chef in mind, look for villas with a proper professional-grade kitchen: six-ring hob, large oven, ample prep space, and good storage. The listing should mention this explicitly.
For wine tours, proximity matters. The sweet spot is a villa within 30-45 minutes of a serious wine region, with reliable road access (some Tuscan hill roads, for example, are not suited to anything larger than a standard car). A local concierge service, which Trusted Villas includes with all bookings, can arrange transport so that no one has to drive.
Pool access is almost always assumed with this tier of villa, but it's worth checking orientation. A pool that faces west catches the afternoon sun; one facing east is better for morning swims and gets shade by 3pm. Small detail, but it matters more than you'd think after a long day's wine touring.
What This All Costs: Being Honest About Budgets
A private chef in southern Europe typically charges between €250 and €450 per day, plus groceries. For a group of eight sharing a villa at €5,000 per week, that adds roughly €350-€640 per person across seven days. Less than you'd spend eating out at comparable restaurants every night, and considerably more enjoyable.
A private wine tour with a specialist guide runs €100-€300 per person depending on the region and what's included. Provence and Tuscany sit at the higher end; Portugal and Spain offer excellent value.
Total for a week in a quality villa with a private chef and one or two curated experiences? Budget around €12,000-€20,000 for a group of eight, including the villa. Per head, that's comparable to a week in a decent five-star hotel, but the experience is categorically different.
Book It the Right Way
The details matter enormously with this kind of holiday. A chef who's brilliant in Tuscany isn't necessarily available in Mallorca. A wine tour company that's genuinely knowledgeable in the Alentejo may not have connections in Provence. This is why booking through a specialist like Trusted Villas, rather than trying to cobble it together yourself via a generic rental platform, makes a significant practical difference.
We vet the chefs. We've met the wine tour guides personally. We know which villas have the kitchens that work. And we're on the phone if anything goes sideways, which, in our experience, very rarely happens, but it's good to know someone is there.
If a luxury holiday home with a private chef and a wine tour in the afternoon sounds like the kind of holiday you've been meaning to plan, browse our Tuscany villas, explore Mallorca, or take a look at our Provence collection. Our team is happy to talk through what's possible for your dates, your group, and your budget. No obligation, just genuinely useful advice.