Secrets from the Vine
DaySpa Magazine. By Karen Edwards. From the dining room to the treatment room, wine makes a splash as the next great antiaging therapy. A morning mist shrouds California’s Sonoma County, obscuring acres of grapevines that crisscross the land, turning it into a series of perfectly placed grids. It’s September, “the crush,” and workers will soon be picking plump, ripe grapes from the vines and carting them to the local winery to be turned into wine…and eventually, into spa treatments.
For the last decade, the so-called French paradox has taught Americans the value of drinking a glass of red wine with dinner. And spas have discovered that grape by-products-the seeds, skins and stems left after the juice is removed-can be transformed into products and treatments that benefit the skin.
The stories of the healing properties of grapes and wine go back as far as the fourth century, when Hippocrates prescribed wine to his patients. The French king Louis XIV is also rumored to have used grapes topically as a skin treatment. “They say Cleopatra used to bathe in wine,” says Laura Root, director of product formulations and education for Antiqua Prima, Inc.