New Wine, New Skins?

A massage with Merlot? A soak in Sauvignon? A new beauty treatment is derived from the seductive if scientifically iffy idea that the grape's potent antioxidants can outwit the aging of the skin. Vinotherapy, as the process is called, was developed by the French (of course!) at the Caudalie Vinotherapy Spa in Bordeaux, where devotees indulge in body scrubs made from crushed Cabernet grape seeds or soak shoulder-deep in a barrel of spring water and grape extract. In the U.S., Napa Valley's Fairmont Sonoma Mission Inn & Spa, below, has couples sip wine in a brass tub filled with grape-seed bubble bath and rose petals, then emerge for a massage with grape-seed body lotion. It's the seeds that purportedly contain the most powerful antioxidant properties, but for those aching to splash around in alcohol, next month New York City's Just Calm Down day spa will begin to offer the Grape Gatsby, a pedicure in which patrons' feet are treated to a 30-minute exfoliating soak in red wine and a moisturizing rubdown with crushed red grapes. Of course, to replicate this experience in the privacy of their own home, do-it-yourself types can always uncork a bottle and stomp on a few grapes instead.