Wine therapy is the latest trend in attempts to slow or reverse aging. But does it work? -- AARP The Magazine, November/December 2005

Drinking wine: passe.  Soaking in grape extracts: trendy. So say boosters of wine therapy--or vinotherapie as it's called in Europe--who claim that oils and lotions made fromm wine-grape extracts can tighten skin and slow the aging process.

Celebs in Hollywood and Europe are indulging in an array of treatments--baths, facials, massages--at spas affiliated with Caudalie, a winery in Bordeaux, France. Caudailie also sells antiaging products in the U.S. at stores such as Nordstrom (where a 1.3-ounce tube of Caudailie cream costs $39). But don't book that spa trip just yet. Leroy Creasy, professor emeritus of fruit and vegetable science at Cornell, says he's skeptical. "I wouldn't say it doesn't work," says Creasy. "But I wouldn't spend a lot of money on this either."

We took the pluge with a 14-minute bath at Relais San Maurizio, a hotel and wine spa in Italy. Before cranking up the Jacuzzi, an attendant dumped a shot glass of wine-grape extracts and three drops of oil into the tub. The cost: about $60.  Afterward, we grabbed several tubes of facial cream. And we're still waiting for our laughlines to vanish.