KEY POINTS:
Eat your heart out, Cleopatra. You might have bathed in asses' milk but I've soaked in a wine spa in Abruzzo, Italy. Vinotherapy is the official term for exploiting the healing power of grapes to the max, but that doesn't go close to conveying the delicious decadence I felt.
It's the best way of coping with jetlag I've ever experienced. I'd flown economy from Auckland to London via Los Angeles then waited four hours at Heathrow for my flight to Italy. I was in dire need of some serious pampering.
Dark-haired Berta took me under her wing at the Centro Benessere (Wellness Centre) at Agriturismo Agriverde, a wine estate near Ortona, where our Absolutely Abruzzo tour group was staying. First olive oil was spread on my skin, before a massage with gently abrasive, exfoliant grape seeds. After a rinse in the shower, I could already feel a pleasant silkiness on my skin, even before descending into the warm wine spa.
As Berta poured wine in - the first pressing of warmed Montepulciano, with anti-oxidants added - the water became a rich purple colour and I lay back in it, eyes half-closed, and relaxed to the point of somnolence.
Vinotherapy, I was informed, protects skin against free radicals which cause ageing. The polyphenols in grapes protect collagen and elastin fibres and the spa promises that they will help you "rediscover health, beauty and youth".
Well, at least I could tick the first of that trio, though I couldn't say if my radicals have been protected!
Wine defines Abruzzo in far more traditional ways than the wine spa. Just 90 minutes' drive from Rome, bordered by the Adriatic Sea and the Appenine ranges, Abruzzo's combination of soil and climate must be ideal for grapes as theslopes that aren't covered in olive trees are carpeted in vines and boutique wineries.
The predominant local grape varieties are Montepulciano, producing a smooth, soft red wine and Trebbiano, a sunshine coloured white with an aroma of ripe apples.
My favourite tasting was at family winery Fattoria Licia in the village of Villamagna. The De Luca family is experimenting with ageing their reds in fibreglass vats from which they believe no taste comes (unlike stainless steel). We tasted their wines (with not a screwtop in sight) on a long table laden with pecorino and ricotta cheeses (both from sheep's milk) and rolls still warm from the oven.
It's an engaging area little known by tourists and especially appealing because of that. We were the only visitors at the museum in Pescara, the region's largest commercial centre, and again in the colourful ceramics museum in the mediaeval hilltop town of Loreto Aprutin.
Abruzzo is gourmet territory in both wine and food - the latter was imaginative, well-presented, natural and seasonal wherever we went. And it has no need to join the current slow food movement as it never took to fast food in the first place.
In our week we luxuriated in lovely long dinners where the antipasto courses stretched forever - though I'm not sure I'd try donkey again. The restaurants were intriguingly varied - one was in a cave, another had been a carpenter's workshop and a third was in a converted farmhouse. A real voyage of discovery.
* Judith Doyle visited Italy courtesy of House of Travel.
- Detours, HoS
