I'm sitting in a barrel of churning purple water, wearing nothing but the paper G-string shoved at me by my attendant, Giulia, before she left me to stew. I watch grape skins swirl around the lukewarm water, thinking of my piled- up e-mail and the gorgeous room where I just had time to dump my suitcase.

I can't relax on cue, and this irritates people. It also makes me a bad candidate for the spa experience. But I'm in Modena, Italy, and the Hotel Terme Salvarola is as luscious a place as any to check out the growing trend of vinotherapy.

Cleopatra bathed in wine. Now Madonna and Isabel Adjani are doing it, thanks to Mathilde and Bertrand Thomas, of Bordeaux's Chateau Smith Haut Lafitte. In the early 1990s they were strolling through the vineyards with a pharmacist friend when they came upon a huge mound of discarded grape seed. "Mon dieu," cried the friend, "those seeds fight free radicals - they're worth a fortune!" So they launched Caudalie - first a line of grape-based skin care, later a spa.

After an excruciating 20 minutes, Giulia returns with a fresh G-string and tells me to lie on a table. She smears me with grape oil and then grinds seeds and skins into my flesh, before rolling me in hot, wet sheets and leaving me to marinate like a vinous burrito.

Caudalie, which owns the term vinotherapie, has spas around the world. But lots of other hotels and wineries have leaped on the wine-treatment concept. Making money from waste products is an attractive proposition, playing nicely into the public's growing desire to act, or at least feel like they're acting, green.

For wine tourists who love cooking classes, vertical tastings and treks through vineyards, it's another way to feel close to the grape. Plus it's something for their non-geek spouses to do.

Now that every corner of the globe sports a Gap and a Starbucks, the appeal of a unique, local experience is growing. You can get a papaya and lava rock massage in Hawaii, maple sugar exfoliation in Canada, a sea salt scrub in Greece and cranberry enzyme baths in Cape Cod. If you think a chocolate facial in Hershey, Pa., sounds weird, how about an Arizona special, the cactus wrap?

In the same spirit, wine spas offer an array of treatments, including Champagne bubble pedicures and facials, massage with grape-seed oil, pine and eucalyptus honey, and the Pulp Friction massage, a Caudelie special where they crush fresh grapes all over your body. Try a grape seed mud wrap, or the Chardonnay Cocoon. Follow a grape- only cleansing diet while a masseuse stimulates your spinal energy paths with an artisanal wine- making rake. Or find out exactly what ascends during the Vinolift.

Many spas also sell grape-based products, such as Olavie's Le Vin chardonnay seed body oils, ISHI Elements Tuscan Sangiovese creams and oils and 360 Skin Care's Vino Therapy Collection.

Obviously, the wine and travel demographic is concerned with aging. Since we love to believe in the magic of exotic ingredients, spas exalt the antioxidant properties of grape seed, claiming it's more powerful than vitamins A (or beta carotene), C and E, that it firms skin and reduces wrinkles. It's even claimed to tone muscles, enhance circulation, reduce varicose veins, ease allergies and fight stress and depression.

But only, according to Caudelie's Mathilde Thomas, if you do it right. She wrinkles her nose at wine baths, saying alcohol is too harsh and benefits come from grape skins and seeds, not wine. She disapproves of spas that encourage you to drink wine during treatments. Save that for later, she advises; drink plenty of water instead.

I'm grateful for the cup of tea Giulia hands me after freeing me from my wine-flavored shroud. A calm - no, let's call it exhaustion - settles over me as I wend my purple-skinned way along the wooded path to my room. After glancing at my computer and suitcase, I sink into the down quilt and sleep soundly till morning.

jester@corkjester.com

Recommended

CAUDELIE VINOTHERAPIE SPAS

* Relais San Maurizio, Piedmont, Italy, www.relaissanmaurizio.it

* Les Sources de Caudalie, Bordeaux, France, www.sources- caudalie.com

* Kenwood Inn and Spa, Sonoma Valley, Calif., kenwoodinn.com

* Marques de Riscal Hotel, Rioja, Spain, starwoodhotels.com

OTHER SPAS OFFERING WINE THERAPY

* Sante Winelands, South Africa, africade.com/en/wellness/ sante.asp

* Villagio Inn and Spa, Yountville, Calif., villagio.com

* Balgownie Estate Vineyard Resort, Yarra Valley, Australia, balgownieestate.com.au

* Patios de Cafayate Hotel and Spa, Salta, Argentina, starwooodhotels.com

* Garden Spa at MacArthur Place, Sonoma, Calif., macarthurplace.com

* Spa at Meadowood, Napa Valley, Calif., meadowood.com