How to Stock a Holiday Villa for the Week: Quantities, Timing and What to Have Waiting

The car is on its way from the airport, the house is ready and the fridge is cold. What is in it, and what is waiting in the cellar, is decided days earlier by whoever plans the week: the principal, a PA, the villa manager or the rental agency. This is the planning sheet we work from when we stock a villa for a holiday, whether it is in Saint-Tropez, on Mallorca or above a beach on Mykonos.

Start from the guests, not the wine list

Before a single bottle, four facts: how many adults, how many nights, how many of those nights are dinners at the house, and whether there is a party in the middle of the week. Then the people: who drinks champagne and nothing else, who will only drink one red, who is not drinking at all this summer. A five-line note from the house manager is worth more than any list we could suggest.

The arithmetic

A planning figure that holds up well for a relaxed holiday group is around two thirds of a bottle of wine per adult per day, across aperitif, lunch and dinner, before spirits. A week for ten adults is therefore roughly forty to fifty bottles of wine. How that splits depends on the place and the weather, but a sensible starting point for a Mediterranean summer looks like this:

• Champagne: about a quarter of the total. Aperitif every evening, and more on the night of the party.
• Rosé: about a third. Lunch by the pool runs on it, and it is the category that runs out first.
• White: about a fifth, weighted to fresh styles for lunch and one richer white for fish at dinner.
• Red: the rest, lighter and cooler than you would choose in winter, with one or two serious bottles for the dinner that deserves them.

Then add spirits and mixers for the bar, and a proper alcohol-free option. On the yachts we supply, alcohol-free is the fastest-growing thing we deliver, and a villa table is no different: a dry, considered alternative is now expected, not an afterthought.

Order a little more than the arithmetic

Running out on Thursday evening is a far more visible failure than three unopened bottles on Sunday. Round every category up, and keep the extra in the bottles that travel home or keep well in the cellar rather than the house rosé.

Timing: plan the delivery around the arrival

Tell us the arrival date and who will receive the delivery at the property: the villa manager, the concierge or the housekeeper. Champagne, rosé and white need a day in the fridge before the first guests sit down, so we aim to have the order in the house before the family arrives, not with them. On the Côte d’Azur and around the Gulf of Saint-Tropez our own team drives it over. Elsewhere in the EU we ship by DHL, and for a high-value order our own team drives it, as far as Athens, ferry included for the islands.

What to have waiting on arrival

• A bottle of champagne in the fridge and glasses out for the first evening.
• A cold rosé and a cold white ready for the first lunch.
• Water, still and sparkling, in quantity. It is the thing every house underestimates.
• The bar set: the principal’s spirit, a gin, a tequila, mixers, ice.
• A short written list of what is in the cellar and where, so whoever is serving can find it without asking.

Order it once, for the week

A single planned delivery is calmer for the house and better for the wine than four trips to the supermarket. Send us the guest numbers, the dates and what people like, and we will put the week together. See wine delivery to villas and holiday homes in Europe, or go straight to Saint-Tropez, Mallorca, Ibiza or Mykonos.