At Spanish monastery-turned-spa, they treat you with wine (and you can drink it too)
Why wait till five o’clock? It’s always happy hour at Abadia Retuerta LeDomaine, whose Santuario spa specialises in vinotherapy – treatments that include wine
What’s this place, then? Nirvana for those in need of a bit of vinotherapy.
Vinotherapy? IS THAT SOME SORT OF HAPPY HOUR? No, that’s spa talk for treatments that involve wine. You won’t have to wait ’til five o’clock to indulge at Santuario, a subterranean spa in Spain’s Duero Valley. An hour’s drive from Valladolid, surrounded by vineyards and housed in a 12th-century, fully restored monastery, Abadia Retuerta LeDomaine is Spain’s first Relais & Châteaux hotel.
The spa, which opened last summer, is inside what were the monks’ stables. The 10,000 sq ft retreat is set apart by its “spa sommelier” programme, a pre-treatment wine tasting (and essential-oil sniff test) that allows the therapists to fine-tune your spa adventure. Among the more unusual treatments are the Cryo Jetlag Reviver and Cryo Time Freeze, which employ cold temperatures to encourage rejuvenation.
Do tell us more. A sleek, modern spa set amid the old-world gravitas of the Romanesque and Baroque abbey, the contrast could not be more pronounced. The airy rooms, awash in light, seem poised between the past and the present like magical portals.