THE French are taking their adoration of the grape to new extremes as the conviction takes hold that “wine therapy” may hold the secret to eternal youth.

In a trend that is helping to lift the French wine industry out of the doldrums, chic “wine spas” are attracting more and more visitors intent on not only drinking wine but also discovering the benefits of external use through what some are calling “pulp friction”.

“Grape pulp and seeds are terribly good at fighting ageing of the skin, 10,000 times more effective than vitamin E,” said Nathalie Molinier, who runs a Burgundy spa offering grape-based beauty treatments. They include an “antiageing bodyscrub”, a “vintage massage premier cru” and a “regenerating grape pulp wrap”.

The spa, with views of Meursault’s hallowed vineyards, invites customers to immerse themselves in grape-filled wine barrels or to undergo exfoliation or a face rub with grapes mixed with oils.

This “vinotherapy” attracts visitors from all over the world who, after being pampered with pulp, are encouraged to indulge in more traditional wine tourism.

Wine therapy has its roots in the discovery by an eminent pharmacologist more than 30 years ago that grape seeds were rich in powerful antioxidants beneficial to humans.

The owners of Château Smith-Haut-Lafitte in Bordeaux began producing a line of grape seed skincare products in 1995 that became popular with celebrities such as Madonna and the actress Isabelle Adjani.

A few years later, the chateau opened the world’s first “vinotherapy” hotel. Today wine spas are popping up everywhere, including Spain’s Rioja region where the titanium-clad Hotel Marqués de Riscal , designed by renowned architect Frank Gehry, opened last year to offer treatments such as the “hydro-massage red vine bath”.

For the French, the fashion is a timely boost to an industry hard-hit by competition from “new world” wine producers such as Chile and Argentina.

The government is bending over backwards to encourage wine tourism and travel agencies have sprung up, specialising in journeys linked to wine.

Inspired by the success of wine centres in California and Australia, a Bordeaux wine merchant opened a £15m “winery” in March, a sort of wine theme park that is the most ambitious wine tourism project ever in the region. It aims to lure up to 100,000 visitors a year with various attractions, including blind wine tasting to determine a visitor’s oenological rather than astrological sign. Responses to six different wines are analysed by computer to reveal this.

“It is designed to help people understand what they like,” said Yves Bontoux, the manager.

Elsewhere, visitors can help to pick the grapes or attend courses on wine-making and the history of wine. To cap it all, they can then indulge themselves with a bit of “pulp friction”.

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