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BRASELTON, Ga. - I may not know wine, but I know what I like. And what I like is chorizo sausage.
That's not to say I don't like wine at all, but for me, wine is an accompaniment to food, rather than the other way around. The tasting I got to enjoy as part of a recent stay at Chateau Elan Winery & Resort confirmed that sense: four wines with three tapas and some chocolates (to go with the aged port that served as dessert). But the chorizo sauteed in a red wine sauce, paired perfectly with Chateau Elan's "Velvet Reserve," a red blend that the menu described as a "slightly-oaked fruit bomb." Bombs away, I say.
The wine-and-tapas pairing was part of Chateau Elan's impressive food-and-beverage game, putting it squarely on-trend with other golf and resort properties that have finally figured out that golfers deserve to be well-fed as much as they deserve smooth greens.
Golf at Chateau Elan Winery & Resort
I have found 45 to be a magic-number of sorts when it comes to enjoyable and functional golf-resort properties. That's where Chateau Elan sits, with two well-differentiated 18-hole tracts for the usual crowd, plus a 9-hole short course that might fairly be called a golf tasting for kids, beginners and core golf guests who aren't inclined to go 36 holes on a given day but want just a little more golf all the same. Clearly inspired by Augusta National's par-3 loop, it glides downhill out of a stand of trees and onto a lake, with several greens set beside the water.
Opened in 1989, the Chateau Course is the resort's golf flagship. Tipping out at just over 7,000 yards, it rambles from the main clubhouse down into meadow and river valley territory, with a meandering core routing with pleasant single-family homes on the periphery. It returns to the house not at 9 but at 14; architect Denis Griffiths (who designed all the golf on property) takes his time in returning the golfer to the starting point, and the course is all the better for it.
The Chateau's closing four-hole loop then feels like a discrete final act: a par 5, a par 3, a quirky short par 4 and a stately long one to finish. The 372-yard 17th hole, with its significant down-then-up topography and two-tiered fairway, can trip clumsy golfers up and leave them muttering. Griffiths enjoys seeing this psychological challenge play out daily; he lives beside this hole.
Chateau Elan's Woodlands Course opened in 1996. Despite being a few hundred yards shorter than the Chateau, it is the tougher of the resort's two big courses. Carved through dense forest and throwing relentless elevation changes at players, it can turn into a long round for wild drivers or those who bite off more than they can handle with tee selection. When the broadly sloping bent grass greens get fast, things can get dicey. Renovation work led by Griffiths in 2016 sanded some of the edge off of the course by reducing some of the bunkering, but it's still a hearty challenge.
During my visit, I was fortunate to play The Legends, a private club within the greater 3,500-acre property Chateau Elan property. Overnight resort guests used to have some ability to arrange to play it, but ever since the Panoz family, who developed Chateau Elan, sold the resort and retained the private club in 2017, the two entities have been entirely separate.
The Legends opened in 1993 and, like the resort's golf, was laid by Denis Griffiths on a wonderful piece of hilly Georgia parkland. This time, Griffiths had help in the form of collaboration with 20th century golf luminaries Gene Sarazen, Sam Snead and Kathy Whitworth, who lent their input to six holes apiece. As a result, The Legends has a handful of tribute holes patterned after those on other famous courses. The best of these is the 15th, a near-exact replica of the par-3 12th at Augusta National Golf Club.
The Legends' relatively small membership makes it a tough ticket for outsiders, but this exclusivity comes with none of the stuffiness one might normally expect. If you get the chance to play it, you will thoroughly enjoy it.
Chateau Elan's lodging, dining and other activities
I stayed all three nights at the Inn at Chateau Elan, the resort's 300-room main hotel. Along with the neighboring winery, the French-inspired architecture lends a sense of refined escapism that managed never to veer into kitschy territory. Rooms are well-appointed and the hotel itself is a bustling hub of activity, especially on the weekends with couples, bachelorette groups and wedding parties often taking over the property. For golf buddy groups, there is a group of villas close to the main clubhouse. These two- and three-bedroom units appeal to golf groups specifically; they're a two-minute walk to the clubhouse and driving range.
As I mentioned at the top, food and beverage is a particular strong point of Chateau Elan, which has an impressive range of dining options. I enjoyed dinner at both of the resort's upscale options - Marc, the steakhouse located at the winery; and Versailles, the French-accented brasserie concept in the Inn's airy atrium - but my favorite bites were towards the more casual end of the spectrum. In addition to that sauteed chorizo, the Texas patty-melt cheeseburger at Sarazen's at the golf clubhouse was terrific. I also had great lemon-pepper chicken wings at Louis' House of Bourbon, a whiskey pub at the Inn.
While the winery grabs most of the non-golf traffic, Chateau also boasts a highly-rated spa that is home to its own bank of overnight rooms. The food scene extends to various available cooking classes, including tutorials in the art of charcuterie. Playing golf is hungry work; kudos to Chateau Elan for its comprehensive approach to post-round nourishment.
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