Welcome to Louma, our little place built on big dreams.’ The words are carved into the wheel of a pirate ship in the playground, a childlike flourish that distils the spirit of this vineyard-retreat in Dorset’s Marshwood Vale.

Louma lies in a fold of the Vale where the land tips seawards towards the Jurassic Coast. Here vines tumble to the horizon, while cliffs surrender ammonites and belemnites, reminders of the deep time beneath your boots. This is not a hotel ornamented with vines, nor a vineyard hosting beds as an afterthought, but both, fused into a single, living organism in which family, animals, woods, gardens, and wines exist in porous equilibrium.

Arrive at Louma after three hours from London – by train, or a drive ending in tunnels of trees – and you come to an unassuming entrance. The modest approach conceals the underlying philosophy. Its very name, a portmanteau of Louis and Emma Steyn, traces the evolution from a private refuge for themselves and their three children into a retreat shaped by regenerative farming and a thoughtful devotion to wine.

Delicious grapes grown at Louma’s own vineyard 

Louis, from the family behind Johannesburg’s celebrated Saxon Hotel – where Nelson Mandela once lived while editing Long Walk to Freedom – brought from South Africa a lifelong commitment to farming and rewilding. Together with Emma, raised in Chichester and drawn to animals and the craft of gardens, in 2019 they set about transforming Spence Farm into a living testament to their shared passion for regeneration and handmade living.

The first buildings you encounter are the stables, home to retired thoroughbreds, ponies and the great Clydesdale horses, Harry and Freddie. Beyond are orchards, edible gardens, animal paddocks and the communal barn, where, at lunch, hearty soups, colourful salads and breads are laid out to be enjoyed with wide views across the lower vineyard.

Accommodation is spread between the Main House, Stone Barns, Timber Stables and Shepherds Huts, each framed in local stone or timber. We stayed in Rootstock, restored in Dorset chert and named in honour of the vineyards, with a second bedroom for our daughter, a natural stone bathroom with rainfall shower, regularly refreshed fruit in the kitchen, and windows framing ornamental gardens and the horizon beyond. Vines unspooled towards the sea, the view shifting by the hour – sun one moment, storm-curtains the next.

Louma runs as much on cadence as construction. Days form a ritual: breakfasts in the Main House, a walk through the vines, before cuddling chicks, checking on turkeys, and wandering greenhouse and woods together. Evenings gather at the firepit, children toasting outsize marshmallows into the Dorset dusk. As day darkens, the bar comes alive with curated cocktails rooted in Louma’s gardens and hedgerows. The next day, in the Cow Barn, yoga with Pip unfolds overlooking the upper vineyard, sound baths resonating through rafters while turkeys scratch beneath. The separate Wellness Barn houses treatment rooms, an indoor pool and sauna, then an outdoor pool kept to 27°C.

A view of Louma’s vineyard

A table and a Vineyard

Meals in the Main House are relaxed and social, with chefs working with what is lifted from gardens, forest and sea. Menus change with the seasons, sometimes even with the mood in the kitchen, and José, the affable waiter, has a knack for making every choice sound enviable. Executive chef, John Long, once of River Cottage, has a nose-to-tail and root-to-tip approach, and a gift for making the humble sing alongside the grand. My plate of carrots, chosen instead of lobster, was a multitude of heritage varieties, roasted, braised, fried, and puréed, and ended up scraped completely clean.

The vineyard is Louma’s heartbeat. Spanning 33 acres across two sites planted since 2006, its backbone is chardonnay, pinot noir and pinot meunier, with younger rows of pinot gris and divico, the Swiss-bred, disease-resistant cross of gamaret and bronner. Divico, named for a Celtic chieftain, produces in these cooler soils reds perfumed with blackberry, blackcurrant and cherry.

Jonathan Atkin, once of York, manages the slopes, which sit a few degrees warmer than neighbouring woodland thanks to the buffering sea. Pinot meunier thrives in the sun-soaked corner; harvest falls with regularity around 15 October. Poll Dorset sheep graze among the vines post-harvest, and Harry and Freddie are harnessed to work them, while every vine is pruned, and every bunch is picked by hand.

The winemaking is entrusted to Nick Lane, whose CV spans Dom Pérignon and Cloudy Bay. He applies precision to Dorset’s raw, wind-flecked conditions. From the 2020s, the classic cuvée offers honeycomb, citrus and saline edge; its rosé carries brioche and strawberry; the still chardonnay is savoury; and the pinot noir, best lightly chilled, speaks of violets. Tours and tastings, led by Michelle Parish, are open only to Louma’s guests – a privilege which keeps them unhurried, intimate and stitched with warmth, often paired with local cheeses.

Louma is built not only from stone and vine, but from Louis and Emma Steyn’s desire to share a vision of Dorset where vines lean towards the sea, and where every guest becomes, for a fleeting while, part of their dream.

Champernhayes Lane, Bridport DT6 6DF; loumafarmandretreat.co.uk