Wine · Dining · The resort estate
Chateau Elan: the winery estate
Chateau Elan is the 3,500-acre wine and resort estate just north of Braselton, founded in 1981 by Don and Nancy Panoz as the region's first winery after Prohibition and modeled on a Loire Valley chateau.
It is a winery, a resort hotel, a golf estate, and a dining destination in one, and this page gives the honest lay of it: what to book, where to eat, and what the visit actually takes.
The winery
Tours, tastings, and the wine market
The winery runs daily tours and tastings, from the tasting flights at the counter to the longer estate tours, with a wine market and the chateau's own shops on site. The honest advice: book ahead on weekends, because the tasting room fills with buses and bachelorette groups, and the guided tour is the better deal if you want the actual story of the vines.
The dining rooms
The estate restaurants, by room
Marc
The estate's steakhouse room, the booking for an anniversary or a parents weekend.
Paddy's Irish Pub
The pub, built in Ireland and rebuilt on the estate, with the pub menu and the casual crowd. The friendliest room for a regular night out.
Versailles and Fleur de Lis
The white-tablecloth French-adjacent rooms of the main chateau, for the formal end of the evening.
The bistro and wine market
The lighter counter and the wine market in the chateau, right for a lunch on the tasting day.
Beyond the wine
Golf, the hotel, and the day-trip math
Golf
The estate plays 63 holes across its courses, including the original Chateau course and the Woodlands, with the private Legends club designed with Gene Sarazen, Sam Snead, and Kathy Whitworth. Tee times run through the resort.
The hotel and the day visit
The resort hotel, spa, and event space make it a stay destination, but the honest day visit works too: tastings in the morning, lunch at the bistro or Paddy's, and a walk of the chateau grounds before the drive home. The full calendar and booking run through chateauelan.com.
The plan
The honest visit plan
- Book the tasting or tour online before the weekend; walk-ins wait, sometimes a long time.
- Lunch at the bistro or Paddy's, dinner at Marc for the occasion.
- Pair the visit with a Braselton weekend: the downtown block and the winery are twenty minutes apart, and the race track sits beside the estate.
An editorial guide, not a listings site. Updated September 13, 2026. Real-estate guidance on this page is provided by Rob Dietrich, REALTOR® with eXp Realty, LLC.