6-Bed Stone Villa & Barn in Gaillac Wine Country – Holiday Home Near Cordes-sur-Ciel



Midi-Pyrénées, Tarn, Cordes-sur-Ciel, France, Vindrac-Alayrac (France)
6 Bedrooms · 5 Bathrooms · 290m² Floor area
€460,000
Villa
Parking
6 Bedrooms
5 Bathrooms
290m²
Garden
Pool
Not furnished
Description
On a warm Tuesday in late September, the vendange is underway across the road. You can smell the crushed Braucol grapes from the kitchen terrace, that sharp, fermented sweetness that rolls in off the Gaillac vineyards like a seasonal alarm clock. The village is quiet otherwise — a dog, a tractor somewhere distant, the thud of shutters being opened. This is Vindrac-Alayrac, and mornings here have a specific gravity that no coastal resort can replicate.
This six-bedroom stone villa sits right in the fold between two of southwest France's most compelling destinations: Cordes-sur-Ciel, the gravity-defying medieval hilltop village that appears to float above the Cérou valley, and Gaillac, one of France's oldest wine appellations, producing reds, dry whites, and sparkling Méthode Ancestrale wines that sommeliers in Paris still underestimate. You're between both, five minutes from either, yet the property itself feels nothing like a compromise location — it feels like the actual point of the whole region.
The building is, in truth, two buildings. A three-bedroom white-stone village house and a converted stone barn of equal size sit together on nearly 3,000 square metres of mature, privately walled garden. Lock two interior connecting doors and you have a six-bedroom family home — the kind where three generations can actually coexist without anyone losing their mind. Unlock them and you have two completely separate three-bedroom residences, each self-contained, each with its own entrance, its own rhythm. The current owners hold a 4-star classification from the Tarn Tourist Board for holiday rentals accommodating up to 12 guests, which means the income infrastructure is already in place for buyers who want to offset running costs — or simply share the place with people they like.
At 290 square metres of interior space, there's genuine room to breathe. The eat-in kitchen runs to nearly 35 square metres — big enough for a proper Sunday lunch production, the kind where four people are simultaneously chopping, stirring, and arguing about whether the cassoulet needs more confit. The open-plan living, dining, and kitchen area in the barn conversion stretches to almost 55 square metres, with the kind of ceiling height that stone agricultural buildings seem to gift every room. Ground floor includes a bedroom and shower room, which matters more than buyers initially realise — it's what makes this work for older parents visiting, or for those weeks when knee surgery makes stairs unwelcome.
Upstairs, five more bedrooms range from the 16.8-square-metre principal room with its own en suite bathroom down to the smaller doubles, all of them practical, all of them with the thick stone walls that keep August afternoons genuinely cool without air conditioning. Two family bathrooms, three shower rooms in total across the property — five wet rooms for six bedrooms means no queuing, no negotiating, no one sulking over bathroom schedules.
Then there's the garden, which is frankly the revelation. Village properties in the Tarn are not supposed to have this. Two terraces — one at 31 square metres, one at over 81 — frame a heated 12-by-5-metre swimming pool fitted with an electric safety cover. There's a separate external shower room positioned exactly where you'd want it: between the pool and the back door. Parking for four cars minimum. A garage of nearly 23 square metres. An outbuilding. Mature trees providing genuine shade, not the decorative kind. The whole thing is private in a way that village properties almost never are.
Cordes-sur-Ciel is seven kilometres away, up the winding D600. The Saturday market there draws locals from across the Tarn, selling everything from goat cheese wrapped in chestnut leaves to hand-thrown pottery. The Grand Fauconnier restaurant on the main square is worth booking well in advance — the duck cooked with Gaillac wine and porcini mushrooms from the Sidobre forest has been a fixture on the menu for good reason. Every August, Cordes hosts the medieval festival Fête du Grand Fauconnier, complete with jousting, troubadours, and rather a lot of hypocras — spiced wine that tastes exactly as strange and interesting as the 13th century deserves.
Down the valley, Gaillac itself is a proper market town with a good weekly market on the Place de la Liberation, a Roman-era abbey, and the Maison des Vins where you can taste through the appellation's full range before committing to a case. The Domaine Plageoles in nearby Cahuzac-sur-Vère — practically your neighbour — makes some of the most individual wines in the southwest, including a still Mauzac Vert that tastes genuinely unlike anything else grown in France. Albi, the red-brick cathedral city and birthplace of Toulouse-Lautrec, is 25 kilometres east and worth an afternoon any time of year, particularly when the Musée Toulouse-Lautrec is running one of its exhibition rotations.
The climate in this corner of the Tarn is warm without the savage heat of the Mediterranean coast. Summers are long and dry, perfect for pool season from May through October. Spring arrives early and smells extraordinary — the surrounding countryside goes from bare vines to leaf in about three weeks. Winters are mild enough that the property works as a year-round retreat; the oil-fired central heating with radiators throughout and the fireplace in the main living room handle the cold months with ease.
For international buyers, the Tarn is increasingly on the radar but hasn't yet hit the price levels of the Dordogne or Provence. At 460,000 euros for a property of this flexibility and size — with established rental credentials and nearly 3,000 square metres of land — the maths are worth examining carefully. The taxe foncière sits at €2,199 annually. Energy performance is rated E, typical for a property of this age and construction, and estimated annual energy costs fall between €6,090 and €8,240 at current tariffs. The property is on main drainage. Toulouse-Blagnac airport is under an hour away, with direct flights to London, Amsterdam, Brussels, and multiple other European cities throughout the year.
Key features at a glance:
- 6 bedrooms, 5 bathrooms across two interconnected stone buildings totalling 290 sq m
- Unique dual-living layout: one 6-bed home or two independent 3-bed residences
- 4-star Tarn Tourist Board classification for holiday rental up to 12 guests
- Heated 12m x 5m pool with electric safety cover and external shower room
- Nearly 3,000 sq m of mature, private walled garden
- Two terraces: 31 sq m and 81 sq m
- Ground-floor bedroom and shower room for single-level living
- Principal bedroom with en suite bathroom
- Garage, outbuilding, and parking for 4+ cars
- 5 minutes from Cordes-sur-Ciel and the Gaillac wine appellation
- Central heating (oil/radiator), fireplace, and thick stone walls for year-round comfort
- Annual taxe foncière: €2,199
- Under 1 hour from Toulouse-Blagnac international airport
- Established rental income potential with infrastructure already in place
Properties that genuinely work on multiple levels — architectural character, practical flexibility, income potential, outdoor space, and location — rarely appear in the Tarn at this price point. If you're considering a second home in southwest France, or a vacation property that earns its keep between your own visits, this is one to see in person rather than deliberate over a screen. Contact Homestra today to arrange a viewing or to request the full information pack, including rental history and legal documentation for international buyers.
Details
- Amount of bedrooms
- 6
- Size
- 290m²
- Price per m²
- €1,586
- Garden size
- 8903m²
- Has Garden
- Yes
- Has Parking
- Yes
- Has Basement
- No
- Condition
- good
- Amount of Bathrooms
- 5
- Has swimming pool
- Yes
- Property type
- Villa
- Energy label
Unknown
Images






Sign up to access location details



































