Treatments Amidst the Grapes
Château Élan Spa
by Sandy Samuels
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The lobby at Château Élan Spa |
"Winery" services are the specialty at Château Élan Winery and Resort, a 3,500-acre vineyard estate located just 40 minutes north of Atlanta, Georgia. Along with a 275-room resort and a 42,000-square-foot, 16th-century French Chateau style winery where Georgia Chardonnay ages in French oak barrels, the estate is also home to an intimate and sumptuous stand-alone spa.
A small group of destination spa guests (most rooms are for singles) reside in a wing of the resort's fourteen-suite, 33,000-square-foot French-inspired spa mansion. In-house “overnight” guests therein have 24-hour access to the steam and sauna (in his/hers locker rooms), use of the co-ed, indoor heated resistance pool, fitness area as well as classes, lunch and afternoon tea. A variety of spa packages include some services and meals in the mansion’s Fleur de Lis dining room overlooking the lake, where wine is served and spa cuisine is prepared by spa chef Amie Reavis. The 36 treatment rooms in the spa mansion are available to destination spa guests as well as Château Élan hotel and day guests, all of whom can book a la carte spa treatments and use the facility from 8 a.m. until 9 p.m. In addition to body treatments (massage, exfoliations and wraps) and beauty services (skin, nail, hair, make-up and waxing), the program includes exercise and nutrition and specializes in grape-seed-based vinotherapy treatments.
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A spa guest receives a facial |
The women's spa locker room |
The Chateau Winery Ritual ($250 plus tax and gratuity) is a 110-minute, head-to-toe treatment featuring Napa Valley Products. The experience begins with an anti-oxidant winery bath, an exfoliation with a cabernet/passion fruit and crushed grape seed scrub and an application of warmed passion fruit mud. After a shower, the therapist applies a cabernet/passion fruit body butter moisturizer. For “dessert,” the Chateau Spa Massage, a classic body massage ($121), is perfect. There’s also the De-Vine Mud Wrap (in a treatment room with a private shower), which includes a scrub, an application of warmed grape seed-enriched clay, a scalp massage and a Green Tea Body Butter, with grape seed balm as the finishing moisturizing cream. We recommend enrolling in a spa cuisine cooking class while there; each includes wine service, a chef's hat, a full serving of each dish, a recipe booklet and a gift from the chef. The classes are held in the winery, where there’s ample shopping in a Parisian-style wine market, the art gallery and a culinary boutique where spa guests receive a 10 percent discount on purchases.
Château Élan Spa
Château Élan Winery & Resort
100 Rue Charlemagne
Braselton, Georgia 30517
800-233-WINE (9463)
www.chateauelan.com
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