Should you purchase today's estate please let your friends at Luxist know, we'd love to come visit. The Grape Leaf Inn in the lovely wine country town of Healdsburg, California. The 13-room bed and breakfast which has been voted as best B&B in the area by a local news station. The inn is a restored Queen Anne Victorian with stained glass and original wood details. Wide porches face tranquil gardens. Currently all the rooms are named after wine varietals and each has its own theme. Many rooms have fireplaces and spa tubs. There is also a wine cellar which is currently used to hold tastings. This property is listed at $4.4 million.

Read more →

Poor DeWitt. They haven't been having a good last couple of years. For a while they were making some of the most interesting and beautiful luxury watches from an indy Swiss watch maker. Now they are struggling to hold on. One of their main allures was the release of very complex watches. Plus I always liked their "castle rimmed" bezels (as I liked to call them). So for this year one of their new models departs from that, and is sort of a bore if you ask me. DeWitt, without the "DeWitt," is barely... DeWitt. While the watch looks like a down market version of their typically stately looking watches, it isn't. The watch is 43mm wide in all 18k rose gold and a complex to make guilloche engraved dial. Despite the standard columns on the side of the case and the intricately made dial, I am just not wowed. A bit problem is the lack of soul. It doesn't really have a theme in my opinion. DeWitt comments that it is part of their brand evolution - which if that is true, doesn't feel like a good thing. It is true that they need less expensive watches to stay around, but I am just not sure their core clientele is going to like this watch.

By the way, the hands are way too short. What is up with that DeWitt?Inside the watch is their caliber DWT8AU automatic movement - not sure who makes that, but it isn't them most likely. The watch will be part of a limited edition of 500 pieces. I don't mean to pan the watch so badly, but in a year from now no one will even remember it. Even though it is not unattractive per se, it just has a forgettable and hard to love style. Again, it lacks soul. Maybe they will have something more exciting to show off at Basel.

Ariel Adams publishes the luxury watch review site aBlogtoRead.com.

For those of you who want to send a delicious delicacy to the one you love on Valentine's Day there are some great mail order options. Whether you like cookies or chocolates there is something for everyone.

We write about Dean & Deluca a lot here on Luxist in part because they consistently offer quality products for the discerning gourmand from various manufacturers around the world. Their offerings for Valentine's Day are no exception:

• From Valerie Confections an artisinal confectioner in Los Angeles, come chocolates designated as Pour Elle and Pour Homme. Each box contains 3 large chocolate hearts and 8 small hearts with the "For Her" gift box having traces of edible rose petals and the "For Him" gift box is completed with caramel and toffee filled chocolates. Each set of 11 pieces retails for $30.00 a box.
• Chocolat Moderne in New York city is represented with a red box filled with 12 hand painted chocolate hearts. The $36.00 box contains two each of six different flavors.
• For those who like their sweets from France, the Pyramide des Tropiques from Francois Pralus, is a great choice for serious chocolate lovers who are more interested in the chocolate itself than cute Valentine wrapping. A stack of 10 individual bars each made with beans from a different part of the world and a 75% cocoa content for $12.00.
  
• Eleni's specializes in selling hand iced cookies. There is an adorable box of pink and purple XO shaped cookies 18 for $50.00 If you go to Eleni's web-site there are just under 20 different designs from which you can pick the perfect option for your sweetie.

All of these purveyors have their own web-sites and it is up to you to decide whether you'd like to comparison shop quickly through Dean & Deluca or take your time and order individually from the different stores. Either way you will come away "smelling like roses" but "tasting like chocolate" a perfect combination for Valentine's Day.

When you think about corporate social responsibility – i.e., good corporate citizenship – the cigar industry probably isn't the first that comes to mind. The cigar business is small and only appeals to a handful of customers. Though I've been a cigar smoker for close to 15 years and was a consumer business strategist for a major consulting firm, I'd never thought about the possibility of corporate social responsibility in the cigar world – it jest never occurred to me.

While I was walking the Drew Estate factory in Esteli, Nicaragua, though, I began to hear the cues that signal an effort to be a valuable member of the community. The company – which produces the Acid and Java cigar lines, along with newer products such as the T9 and T52 – pays twice the region's prevailing wage for its positions. There are healthcare facilities on the premises. Wood for cigar boxes comes only from approved sources with environmentally friendly practices, and the company makes it a point to hire people with disabilities.

Jonathan Drew, one of the company's owners, spoke with me at length about Drew Estate's commitment to the surrounding community, which involves several measures intended to benefit not just the factory's employees but the people of Esteli.

While the holiday celebrations that involve the entire neighborhood, healthcare for employees and pregnancy leave are prominent aspects of Drew's informal philosophy of corporate social responsibility, I was struck by two rather unusual aspects: food and art.

Read more →

Read more →

The $10 million Dubai World Cup, the world's richest horse race, is slated to be held on March 27, 2010 at the new Meydan Racetrack in Dubai. The complex however is open and the first races of the season took place the last week in January at the start of the Dubai International Racing Carnival.

The new complex cost $2 billion to build and is quite unlike anything else in the horse racing world. In part this is due to Sheikh Mohammed bin Rashid Al Maktoum the ruler of Dubai and the driving force behind the racing region. In something out of another era, he had a special route built to the venue just so he can avoid traffic and arrive by boat. The complex and the Dubai creek are now linked by a 4 kilometer canal so the ruler can travel with ease and avoid any log jams that build up in the falcon shaped parking lot which has a capacity for 10,000 cars.

Read more →

The team fielded by famed French jeweler Cartier beat back rivals Brioni, Maserati and Swiss banking house Julius Baer to capture the 26th World Polo Cup on Snow in St. Moritz the other day. 15,000 well-heeled spectators cheered on during the four-day event, culminating in a nail-biting finale where Cartier and Julius Baer were tied 3 - 3 up until the very last minute when Cartier won a penalty shot with only 8 seconds remaining on the clock. A team of seven well-known Swiss star chefs with a combined total of 118 Gault-Millau points catered to the guests on the chic resort's frozen lake where the matches are staged. In snow polo the ponies are shod with special cleated shoes to provide better traction, and the ball is larger, lighter, and painted bright red to accommodate winter conditions.

Earlier this month, we first heard of rumors that coachbuilder Carrozzeria Touring Superleggera planned to introduce a new bespoke version of the Bentley Continental GT. Now, we know that those rumors are confirmed and the vehicle in question will be an interesting shooting brake that will bow at the Geneva Motor Show early next month.

Only 20 three-door estates are planned, and they'll reportedly be built atop the buyer's choice of a regular Continental GT or an uplevel Continental GT Speed. This will be the company's first product based on a vehicle from Bentley, though past models included the likes of Ferrari, Aston Martin and Lamborghini.

We don't have many details on the actual car other than the teaser sketch above and news that there will be two rear seats that will fold independently, making for what we can only assume will be the World's Most Luxurious Six-Foot Luggage Parcel. An electrically operated folding tailgate is also on the menu.

[Source: Classic Driver]

Two down one to go. As we first heard a couple of weeks ago, Ponzi schemer Bernie Madoff's New York City penthouse, the place where he spent months under house arrest, has finally been sold. The NY Post has the scoop on the buyer. It's Al Kahn, the CEO of 4Kids Entertainment. You may not know the name but you know his brands which include Cabbage Patch Kids, Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles and Pokemon as well as the American Kennel Club and the Cat Fanciers' Association. The sale price hasn't been revealed but the apartment was most recently listed at $8.9 million, $1 million off the original price. As with Madoff's Montauk house, which sold for $9.41 million last year, proceeds will benefit those swindled by Madoff.

One property remains, Madoff's Palm Beach, Florida house. A quick peek at Corcoran's listing reveals that the house has had another price cut. Just a couple of weeks ago it was listed at $7.9 million but is now listed for $7.25 million.

Actress Joan Collins is getting back into modeling at the age of 76. The glamorous golden girl will be the face of Alexis Bittar jewelry in ads that will launch on billboards in New York City during Fashion Week. The fact that Collins is most famous for her role as the devilish diva Alexis Carrington on the 1980s drama "Dynasty" is a fact not lost on either the designer or the star. As People.com has it Collins decided that 'Alexis for Alexis' was brilliant. Collins has been a costume jewelry collector for years and states that Alexis Bittar is her favorite designer. The glitzy oversized Bittar pieces seem to suit her well.