Japan’s craze for Beaujolais nouveau has beaten the recession, with tourists taking a dip in a hot mountain spring coloured red with the fruity wine.

The Hakone Kowakien Yunessun spa resort celebrated the annual uncorking of the seasonal drop by having a sommelier pour a few bottles into an open-air hot spring bath as holiday-makers enjoyed soaking themselves.

It was the fourth annual bath using the produce of the French winery Laboure Roi at the spa, which also offers baths with green tea, coffee and sake.

To celebrate the 50th anniversary of its prestigious vintage cuvee, la Maison Ruinart commissioned dutch designer maarten baas to create art for the table.

To celebrate this holiday season, Moët & Chandon has unveiled a special limited edition Moët Celebration set, limited to just 500 units.

The set comprises of eight individual Champagne flutes and a bottle of Moët Imperial Magnum. Each glass has imperial golden bubbles, marked individually with Swarovski crystal colors.

The designer set was created in conjunction with the renowned Parisian jewelers and engravers La Maison Arthus-Bertrand.

Rémy Cointreau Global Travel Retail has launched their Rémy Martin Louis XIII Rare Cask Cognac which is being touted as “supremely rare”.

Baccarat artisans have created a fresh version of the iconic Louis XIII decanter, whose shape was inspired by an ancient metal flask that was found in the mid 19th Century on the site of a 16th Century battleground.

Interbrand partnered with the Courvoisier team to design their recently launched luxury cognac, L’Essence de Courvoisier.

The nectar is presented in a Baccarat crystal, droplet shaped bottle suspended within a gold frame to accentuate its preciousness and retails at almost $3,000.

The cognac is a blend of eaux de vie from wines made at the beginning of the 20th century as well as from the 21st Century.

Paris’s Michelin-starred restaurant, the Tour d’argent, is to sell 18,000 bottles of wine and spirits in an auction which is expected to raise about a million euros.

The d’Argent restaurant, which dates back to 1582, is cleaning out its 450,000-bottle wine cellar, considered one of the best in the world.

The restaurant is also selling some very old spirits, like three bottles of a Clos du Griffier Cognac from 1788, the year before the French Revolution.