Les Sources de Caudalie

The humblest part of the grape
might be the most valuable

elping her parents harvest grapes at their legendary Bordeaux vineyard, Chateau Smith Haut-Lafitte, Mathilde Cathiard-Thomas thought nothing of discarding seeds by the truckload. But a chance encounter with a pharmacy professor convinced her that the humblest part of the grape might prove to be the most valuable.
Professor Joseph Vercauteran of Bordeaux University stopped in the vineyards to chat with Mathilde and her husband Bertrand. Mathilde has no trouble recalling the conversation.
He said, “Do you know you’re throwing out the best part of the grape?”. Vercauteran explained that grape seeds contain polyphenols, which his research has shown are ten times more effective than Vitamin E in fighting the skin’s greatest enemy, free radicals.

as light, cigarette smoke, pollution and stress, free radicals are said to cause 80 percent of the skin’s signs of ageing.
Mathilde and Bertrand, who at the time both worked for L’Oréal, were intrigued. The result, six years later, is a line of beauty products that has achieved worldwide success without advertising, and the world’s first “wine spa”, which offers the health and beauty benefits of every part of the grape in a stunning setting.

Mathilde met Vercauteran, he was in the process of copyrighting a technique for extracting and stabilising polyphenols, which would allow them to be used in beauty products.
In 1994 Mathilde and Bertrand created the Caudalie line, whose name is a wine-tasting term for measuring the “length” of a wine in the mouth (the more “caudalies”, the higher its quality). “Extracting the polyphenols seemed impossible at first”, says Mathilde. “It’s not just ground-up grape seed; it takes one tonne of seeds to extract one kilogram (1.6 pounds) of polyphenols. This one kilogram is worth tens of thousands of francs (thousands of dollars).”

, in short, than some of the best Smith Haut-Lafitte bottles. Long fascinated by the French Paradox, Americans have become some of Caudalie’s most enthusiastic clients. The idea of a spa started to stir in Mathilde’s mind after a conversation with Californian friends in the hotel business, who urged her to open a centre in the Napa Valley. But when a hot spring more than 500 metres (nearly 2,000 feet) deep was discovered on her parents’ property, on a parcel of land too wet for planting grapes, Mathilde knew that the ideal place for her to launch such a venture was in the Graves region of Bordeaux.
With Mathilde’s parents as investors, she and Bertrand have spared no expense in creating a luxury spa for “Vinothérapie”, wine therapy. The $8.3 million complex, called Les Sources de Caudalie, includes a sumptuous hotel with 13 suites and 16 rooms, newly built in the region’s traditional style; two restaurants directed by Didier Banyols, a chef with two Michelin stars, and his wife Marie-Louise, an accomplished sommelier; a cigar room with a panoramic view of the vineyards; and a bar appropriately named “Le French Paradox”, not for the indecisive with 13,700 bottles to choose from.

to baths in the hot spring, enriched with red grapevine extracts and organic essential oils; body wraps made of wine yeasts, honey from the Gironde region and essential oils; massages with perfumed grapeseed oil and a hot water spray; and a steam bath under a dome decorated with stars. Hearty appetites can feast on Banyols’ Catalan-influenced Mediterranean cooking, while the more spartan can order his low-calorie meals or even try the “grape cure”, popular in southern France in the 19th century and revived by Mathilde. The idea was to detoxify the body by eating only grapes freshly picked from the vines for up to two months.

Mathilde is more moderate, recommending two or three days of intense grape-eating combined with a low-calorie diet, herbal teas and exercise. Proof of Mathilde’s ability to make the most of hidden potential is the success of the spa even before its opening in August 1999. The rapidly filling reservations book included names like Isabelle Adjani, and by 1998 the “year 2000” festivities were already fully booked.

Treatments cost
250F ($42) each,
or 700F ($117) a day (for four treatments).

For hotel and restaurant rates, call
33 (0)5 57 83 82 82

For free cosmetics samples, call
33 (0)1 44 29 24 24 

Les Sources de Caudalie
Chemin de Smith Haut-Lafitte,
33650 Martillac – France Sources@sources-caudalie.com www.sources-caudalie.com