17-05-2025
The £1,400 moisturiser made with Château d'Yquem dessert wine
It may sound like an Ab Fab fever dream — a partnership between the luxury fashion and beauty house Dior and one of the wine world's most recognisable names, Château d'Yquem — but thanks to some novel skincare science, it's a great pairing when it comes to your complexion.
Blending booze with beauty products, or more specifically using wine grapes as ingredients in skincare, is something brands — particularly in France — have been doing for decades. Caudalie is perhaps the best known for it, for 30 years harvesting its ingredients from the vineyards owned by the founder's family in Bordeaux. Then there is Brad Pitt and his skincare brand Beau Domaine, which uses the fruit from vines in Provence.
But what makes Dior's L'Or de Vie line so interesting is the quality and heritage of the Château d'Yquem vines, the unique terroir, and the particular skin-boosting qualities of the Sauternes grapes. We're not playing with plonk here, Château d'Yquem vintages will set you back thousands of pounds — it holds the record for the most expensive bottle of white wine ever sold, set in 2011 when an 1811 vintage fetched £75,000.
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'Yquem wine is one of the rare wines that ages without getting older,' says Virginie Couturaud, the scientific communications director at Christian Dior. This is because of 'the particular conditions of the terroir there', which promote the development of Botrytis cinerea, a fungus known as 'noble rot'. '[It] is considered an enemy elsewhere but a blessing at Yquem, and which adds to the distinctive sweetness of the wine.'
This quality inspired Dior to explore whether the grape had any anti-ageing properties. It discovered what it calls the Protein of Life, and has used this to create its Golden Drop technology — the key to its L'Or de Vie range.
The protein superoxide dismutase (SOD) is extracted from sauvignon vine shoots before undergoing a 17-step chemical process that takes six months to perfect. This 'sap', according to Couturaud, is four times more powerful than resveratrol, a chemical with antioxidant properties which is commonly used in vine-based formulas.
The second half of the Golden Drop technology comes from the Golden Ferment, which is extracted from the noble rot. The five skincare formulas took more than 2,000 hours of work to develop and are luxurious and powerful in equal measure — and Dior has the clinical results to prove it. Le Sérum, for example, a silky and deliciously scented product that works deep in the skin, achieved impressive results in clinical trials, with skin appearing more firm and smooth after one month of use. La Crème, rich and velvety, promises to boost radiance and help to smooth skin texture.
What could have been seen as a gimmicky partnership — two luxury brands coming together to sell pricey skincare — has instead resulted in five science-led products that offer potential anti-ageing benefits to the skin.
Skincare made from wine to counteract the effects of drinking it? Cheers to that.
Details Dior L'Or de Vie skincare from £560 (Le Sérum, £1,400, La Crème, £1,400),
