santiago

Relax in a Carmenere Wine Bath in Chile

Filed under: Luxury Travel & Hotels, Wine

The Ritz-Carlton, Santiago is offering a true delight for a true oenophile: a Carmenere Wine Bath.

You may be accustomed to phoning the front desk to request your bath drawn, but until now, asking them to pour booze in it was something of a faux pas. Wine baths have slowly been gaining acclaim for their antioxidant benefits in various parts of the world, like in Japan where they celebrate the yearly uncorking of their Beaujolais Nouveau by pouring it into natural springs and soaking in it.

The Carmenere grape is a relatively new discovery; the grape was mistaken for Merlot until 1994 and has only been found in Chile. How fitting then, that when visiting Santiago, you can bathe in Carmenere.

No advance reservations are required; simply dial the front desk and ask that the Bath Butler draw you a Carmenere Wine Bath, and you will find your bathroom decked with candles and, of course, a wine-filled tub of pink bubbles full of antioxidants and a literally intoxicating fragrance. As an added indulgence, a glass of the Carmenere will sit bathside for you to drink as you soak.

The Carmenere Wine Bath at the Ritz-Carlton, Santiago costs $50.00.

Tags: carmenere, Chile, Ritz-Carlton, Santiago, wine, wine bath

W Unveils 1st Hotel in South America, the W Santiago

by Jared Paul Stern (RSS feed) —

Filed under: Dining, Luxury Travel & Hotels

W Hotels Worldwide just unveiled its first ever hotel in South America, W Santiago and The Residences at W Santiago in Chile. The W brand's 33rd hotel, W Santiago is the cornerstone of a larger, mixed-use complex, Isidora 3000, which includes a convention center, boutique office space, and high-end retail shops in addition to the W Hotel and W-branded residences. Developed by the Territoria Group, W Santiago is located in the heart of the fashionable El Golf district of the Chilean capital city and surrounded by the magnificent peaks of the Andes. Renowned New York designer Tony Chi partnered with native Chilean designer Sergio Echeverria to create cutting edge interiors for the hotel and residences that are a cool, contemporary take on the varied Chilean landscape. The property features several restaurants and bars as well as a rooftop pool overlooking the city lights (above).

Tags: Chile, hotel, Rande Gerber, RandeGerber, rooftop bar, RooftopBar, Santiago, South America, SouthAmerica, W Hotels, WHotels

Watches & Politics Collide In The 2009 A. Lange & Sohne Lange 1 Time Zone Watch

by Ariel Adams (RSS feed) —

Filed under: Timepieces / Watches

You could probably look at the dial of this beautiful Lange 1 Time Zone watch and not identify anything out of the ordinary. You'd see the two watch faces, the larger showing local time, and the smaller one displaying the time of one of 24 other time zones. You'd see the day and night indicators nicely integrated into each watch face, and you'd also notice A. Lange & Sohne's iconic Out-Size Date window as well as "up" - "down" power reserve meter. Well there is something different about this world time watch.

Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez made a decision in 2007 that literally took Venezuela off the map, the GMT watch reference city map that is. One of his less popular decisions was to give Venezuela its own time zone that is 30 minutes earlier that it used to be. For this reason, the capital city of Venezuela, Caracas, could no longer serve as a reference city for that particular time zone between New York City and Rio de Janeiro. Thus, the new reference city for this time zone has been chosen by A. Lange & Sohne to be Santiago, Chile. Frankly, I think Santiago has a nicer sounding name than Caracas, so this is a good thing.

This also points to the fact that watch makers are obsessed with details and keeping current on world events, with A. Lange & Sohne taking the lead, at least when it comes to time zones. Other facts about this Lange 1 Time Zone watch include the fact that the 42mm wide case is constructed from 18k pink gold. The movement is the carefully made in-house Lange L031.1 manually-wound movement with a 72 hour power reserve. The dial is a solid grayed silver, and the strap is brown crocodile.

Ariel Adams publishes the watch review site aBlogtoRead.com.

Tags: a. lange sohne, A.LangeSohne, caracas, lange 1, Lange1, santiago, soehne, time zone, timepiece, TimeZone, watch