By Darius Sanai
Editor in Chief

On business in Italy, my route takes me along the coast of the Maremma, the beautiful and curiously unspoiled Tuscan coastlands. Combine the words Tuscany and Mediterranean and images of overcrowded beaches and packed rows of villas interspersed with batallions of ice-cream wielding middle-class children come to mind. But in reality, the Maremma, which stretches down from Pisa towards Rome, is one of the least-populated and least-touristed parts of Italy. Partly, this is because it used to be dominated by marshlands (and was once a malarial zone) and has little of the community history of the rest of Tuscany. But that changed 100 years ago, and the lack of tourism now is a mystery: there are beaches, the pineta (the long stone pine forest that wraps along the entire Mediterranean coast, when it is allowed to), picturesque hills, and now, no malaria.

What the Maremma does have, famously, if you are a wine lover, is some of the most interesting wines in the world. A few decades ago, Mario Incisa della Rocchetta, a member of the Tuscan wine aristocracy, planted vines here and created a wine called Sassicaia, which shocked the then conservative and inward-gazing world of wine. This was a wine from nowhere, which was of the quality of the Bordeaux first growths (the likes of Lafite and Latour). Was it a freak?

Sassicaia came from a sloping benchland called Bolgheri, between the sea and the wonderfully-named Colline Metallifere, the Metallic Hills, that border the area. To prove it wasn’t a freak, Incisa della Rochetta’s cousin, Ludovico Antinori (from a branch of the famed wine family, but not the main branch) planted his own wines nearby and in the early 1980s created another Bordeaux-style wine called Ornellaia. While not quite as celebrated as Sassicaia, it also make its mark at the top (or rather bottom) of the world’s wine lists.

There was a patch of land just outside the original domain of Ornellaia that Antinori planted to Merlot, one of the grapes of Bordeaux, and the dominant grape of two of Bordeaux’s legends, Chateau Petrus and Le Pin. Like a great patch of land in Burgundy, it was planted on a slope, slightly concave, with different soils and bordered by wild forests at the top. Like the land of Chateau Petrus, the soil was mainly clay. One day, Ornellaia’s owners decided to make a separate wine just out of grapes from this new vineyard, which was called Masseto, just for fun. The wine was so good, they have told me, that they decided to continue making it formally, in 1986.

And a legend was born, because Masseto is now the single wine of Italy that can take its place in the world’s private jets with the luxury brands of Bordeaux (Lafite, Petrus, etc) and California (Screaming Eagle, Harlan Estate, etc). There may be other wines of Italy which the professional wine tasters find equally good in some years, but they are obscure. Step into a restaurant in Moscow, Dubai or London and order a Masseto, and your companions, whether or not they are wine buffs, will know the card you have played.

“That is the middle part of the vineyard”, Axel Heinz tells me, inching along a sloped dirt track in his Audi. Heinz, handsome, articulate in several languages, and from some theoretical geographical combination of Germany and Bordeaux, is the winemaker for Masseto and Ornellaia, and has been for the past 10 years. “It is the grand cru of Masseto.” He is pointing to a slight hollow in the gentle slope, where grapes of a deep red hang from rows of green leaves. It’s just a vineyard, but I feel the same frisson as when walking the soils of Chambertin or La Landonne in France. The Mediterranean glistens in the middle distance, at its edge the delightfully empty beach by Bolgheri. Brooding forests rise towards the deep blue sky behind.

In the winery, a modernist building constructed in 1989 to blend into the earth, in a tasting room looking out over vines and hills and swathed in late summer sun, we taste some Massetos. The 2012, very young, remember, is deliciously, surprisingly open, broad, layered with bright fruit and cedar. It will be released to the world this autumn. The 2010 is older but tastes younger, more tannic, more closed, proud, just revealing hints of its couture gown from underneath a gabardine Burberry trenchcoat. I make a mental note not to drink the cases I have at home until 2020.

There are others, but the memorable wine, an astonishing wine, is the 2006. It has the breadth and openness of the 2012 but also a tunnel of depth, you can taste all kinds of bosky, subtle, sexy, bedroom-parlour touches and tones. These can only intensify over time. I make another mental note, to buy a case of the 2006 and drink a bottle a year over the next 12 years. Or to use it as perfume.

As I leave, I ask Heinz about the abandoned farm building next to the Masseto vineyard itself. It had been sealed off with fencing; a suggestion that there were plans afoot. “Yes, we are building Masseto’s own winery there,” he says. “Work starts this year and will be finished by the time we harvest the 2017 vintage”. So, Masseto is going it alone within the portfolio? “Yes,” he smiles. I see the flowering of a new, solo, luxury brand.

Darius Sanai

By Darius Sanai
Editor in Chief

One of the truisms of collecting, whether you are Imelda Marcos hoarding shoes or a 21^st century gentleman acquiring classic cars, is that enlightenment comes with possession. You research your subject, speak to fellow collectors, make an acquisition, and, through the circle of friendship and contact endowed by possession, acquire more and better knowledge.

Thus it was with my Ferrari Testarossa. The fabulous looking 1980s supercar is still being fettled to perfection by Joe Macari Ferrari, the celebrated London dealership. Joe Macari has the reputation as one of the most exacting, and most expensive, places to set your classic right. In the course of my conversations with their chief guru (gurus are essential in this game), Andrew Gill, head of aftersales and a man long-term Ferrari aficionados regard with awe, a new dream came into view.

It started when I told him , slightly playfully, that having acquired a Testarossa I was now interested in its successor, the 512 TR, a car that was basically an improved version of the Testarossa: looking just as beautiful (and almost identical), but better to drive. It is also, and this is important for a classic car’s value, rarer. There were 7177 Testarossas made (though mine is one of the 438 UK, right hand drive models), and just 2280 512TRs.

Forget the 512 TR, Andrew said: the 1995-1996 512M was the car to have. “Amazing car. They ironed out all the faults and they drive like nothing else.” Another friend, a very big and respected collector, gave it the nod also and said he’d even go halves with me if I found one.

The 512M was the final iteration of the Testarossa series, and one of the most outrageous looking Ferraris ever. It was given a dramatic aerodynamic makeover which divided opinion at the time (I remember thinking at the time it looked cool and fast, but no longer like a Testarossa) but now looks slick and modern, 20 years on. And its mechanical credentials were legendary. Essentially, the 512M was a racier, lighter, faster and more hi-tech version of the 512TR, down to the engine’s titanium alloy connecting rods and variable pitch valve springs.

 It was Ferrari’s flagship. When it came out, it was the fastest Ferrari and for a while the fastest car in the world. It was also a beast, the last mid-engined production 12-cylinder Ferrari, the end of a line that started with the 365 GT/4 Berlinetta Boxer in 1973, with all the flamboyance that implies. Its successors, from the 550 Maranello to today’s F12, all have engines in front and are far more sober looking.

And there were only 501 made, in the world. I really wanted one.

But where to find one? Calls to friends in the Ferrari universe saying I wanted one received replies of the “so does everyone else” variety. Someone knew of one coming from Japan; no, already been sold. A classic dealer had one advertised in southern Germany, but he wasn’t getting back to me and, no, sold weeks ago. A friend in Switzerland knew of a friend who had one, but values were going up and he wasn’t selling. One in Holland: but lots of miles and looked a bit tired. One at auction in London, but it was missing a lot of history. If you don’t have history, you have to take the mileage and the fact that it has been maintained properly on trust.

One evening, an ad popped up on an alert from an Italian website I subscribe to. Yellow 512M, great history and condition, low miles. I rang the number. “So sorry,” said the owner, a gentleman I would guess in his 70s. A dealer had seen the ad hours earlier, come over with cash (more than 200,000 euros in cash!) and taken the car. When dealers rush for cars, you know they’re hot.

Two days later, on a Friday, another alert, this time from a Spanish specialist site, a car in Barcelona. Pictures, obviously taken by an amateur, of a car on a sunny hillside. Ferrari Red (rosso corsa) with red and black carbon fibre racing bucket seats, a rare option. Only 12,000 miles, a 1995 car, always serviced at a main dealer. An even better car. I dropped the iPad and rang. “Yes, there are lots of people calling,” said a distinguished voice in Spanish. “Dealers, who don’t even speak Spanish!” (a disgusted tone). “I am going away until Tuesday night”. The ad only stated a landline, which meant nobody would get through to him until then.

I’ll meet you on Wednesday at 9am at the Ferrari dealership in Barcelona, I said, to get the car inspected and seal the deal. He agreed. Nobody would be able to get there before me, or would they?

On the Tuesday evening, I flew out to Barcelona and settled in at the Majestic. I had to finish some work, and then drank a couple of cocktails by the (closed) rooftop pool. What if he didn’t show up? What if someone else had managed to get hold of him and put a deposit down sight unseen on the phone, common with such desirable cars? What if the car was not as good as advertised? Did I really want to spend this money on a car which, until last year, had just been another old money pit? Was I ahead of the market or a sucker? A. wasn’t answering his phone.

At 9 the next day, A. (as I will call him) was there, besuited, with his 512M already up on a ramp at Ferrari Barcelona. It looked so clean and barely used, underneath and above. “We service all his Ferraris,” the mechanic told me. All? What others does he have? “A F50 and a 550 Maranello,” he said, naming more than a million euros worth of car. “And then there are all the Porsches and the Aston DB6 and the Rolls…”

A., a scion of Barcelona society in his late-sixties, was delightful. I looked over the car in detail, a list of tips in my hand from both Andrew Gill and the experts on the Ferrarichat online forum. We agreed a price, subject to a full formal inspection by the dealership. I gave him a copy of one of my magazines containing a feature I had written about Ferraris. He zoomed off and came back with a full set of bespoke Schedoni luggage for the car, which hadn’t been mentioned before (market value, more than £10,000). He threw it in for free. We left the 512M with the dealership and he took me for the finest paella I have had, and then a tour of his cars at his stunning modern hillside home (next to Neymar’s house) and in his storage garage. The 512M was neither the fastest or finest of his possessions. We spoke in a blend of French and Spanish, and I pondered that any English or German dealer who had rung A. would not have been able to communicate. He received several messages about enquiries about the car.

The dealership rang me. “We’re emailing the results through,” they said. These included a compression test, which doesn’t lie. It was perfect; as beautiful an example as you could dream of. We shook hands, I transferred the money and boarded a flight to Switzerland for a business meeting the next day, with the elegant gentlemen of Ferrari Barcelona looking after the car for us. A couple of weeks later, my 512M arrived in Britain. I entrusted it to Roger Collingwood of The Ferrari Centre in Kent, a former racing mechanic so honest he needs to be reminded by customers to send his invoices. It passed its UK inspections with flying colours and received a number plate.

I took the train out to Kent to drive it back to its London garage home. The flat-12 engine rumbled behind my ears like a pair of growling hunting dogs. The steering told you everything about the road and more – it has no power assistance and is heavy and astonishingly direct and real compared to today’s cars. The gearlever is grumpy and obstructive when cold but slashing it through the bare metal gate is a joy in itself on the go. The carbon fibre seats are amazingly comfortable. At speed, around corners, it feels on edge (with a big 12 cylinder engine behind you) alive like no modern car and just a little bit dangerous – it has no traction control of any kind, apart from the driver. And the howl when you take those lightweight pistons towards the top of the rev range is properly frightening – you feel this is why they made the car. Even idling, you are always aware of those two angry mastiffs behind you – I keep wondering if a superbike is dawdling by the rear three quarter flank of my car, only to realise it’s my own engine.

While it is now 20 years old and not as fast as any of today’s Ferraris, it feels very fast because it’s so raw, and it is still a properly quick supercar (200 mph, 0-60 in 4.1 seconds).

 Its value has also risen 50% in the six months since I bought it. A is happy, as I paid a strong price at the time; we went to his wedding last month. I don’t intend to sell it anytime soon; it is one of the greatest Ferraris ever made, and I recommend tracking down one of the remaining 500 or so in the world before the prices hit the moon.

Meanwhile, the bug hit again. The 512M’s successor, the 550 Maranello of 1997, was as different as it is possible to be: front engined, understated, wearing a Milanese suit rather than a Versace shirt and Gucci loafers. But a magnificent car, even more powerful, and apparently much easier to handle. Prices seemed very low. With two outrageous Ferraris for those Versace moments, I needed something sober suited and sleek: bespoke Zegna. Time to start looking for one.

(to be continued…)

Darius Sanai

The Alps are at their most sublime when the sun is warm, the snow has given way to meadows, and the crowds are far away, says Darius Sanai. Here we focus on two legendary resorts which really come alive in the summer

Postcard Perfect: The Matterhorn towers over Zermatt’s green summer slopes

Zermatt: The high peak paradise

Mention a luxury chalet in Zermatt to anyone with an ounce of snow in their blood, and they will immediately start to fantasize about the glorious off-piste of the Hohtälli, the vertiginous black runs down from Schwarzsee, the myriad routes down the back of the Rothorn. For chalets and Zermatt mean the ultimate in he-man (and she-woman) ski holidays on the highest runs in the Alps, for groups who can then relax in a super- luxe communal chalet and share stories.

There is, however, another and very different experience to be had in a chalet in Zermatt. Mine started with sitting outside on a broad balcony in a polo shirt, gazing up at the green foothills and rocky high peaks, birds and butterflies drifting past. The summer sun is strong here, but in the mountains the air is dry and there is always a hint of the glaciers in the breeze, so you never feel like you are sweltering.

Zermatt is a glorious place in the summer, as its soaring peaks – it is surrounded by 30 mountains of over 4,000m in height, more than any other village in the Alps – are less frozen, less forbidding, more open to being explored than in the ski season. And while the village is the number one Alpine destination for summer holidays, it is still less crowded than in winter, when the entire populations of Moscow and Mayfair flock to the village under the Matterhorn.

Peak Season:
The village of Zermatt wears a cloak of green throughout the summer months, but the jagged Matterhorn retains its mantle of snow and ice

Chalet Helion, run by uber-swish chalet company Mountain Exposure, is one of the ultimate incarnations of its breed. Technically, although it’s a wood-panelled, chalet-style building, it’s not actually a chalet; rather it is an extensive lateral apartment running across the breadth and length of the construction. You get there via a three-minute taxi ride or five-minute walk from the main train station. Cross the rushing green Zermatt river, walk past the art nouveau-style Parkhotel Beau Site on a little knoll, and there it is.

On walking into the apartment, turn left into a vast, open-plan living room/dining room/kitchen area, with space to seat a party of 20. It sleeps eight people and is well organized for entertaining, as the living quarters can be closed off from the dining and chilling space, where there is also a cosy study.

Draw back the curtains and, beyond the broad balcony terrace, is the most magnificent view in Europe: an uninterrupted vista of the Matterhorn. It rises above the end of the valley like some supernatural thing, a giant, quasi- pyramidical, almost vertical rock formation, covered in thick snow and ice, surrounded by glaciers, standing above other mountains that are green with friendly summer pasture. It looks down with disdain, mocking us mere humans with our pathetic summer activities.

It is also mesmerizing. From the balcony at dawn, it glows rose like a Laurent-Perrier champagne; in the middle of the day, its least forbidding time, it is all silvers and whites; at dusk, it takes on its most frightening aspect, its darkness making you think of all the climbers who have fallen thousands of metres to their deaths on it. My father climbed the Matterhorn when he was young and made me promise I would not do it; he can rest assured from his own place in the skies that there is no danger of that.

The Matterhorn is Zermatt’s brand, adorning every poster, postcard, sticker and banner. But development means it has become harder and harder to find a room with a view of the mountain itself rather than a view of the newest building. And this is what makes Chalet Helion so special, as its vista, from a gentle slope above the village centre, is uninterrupted.

But the mountain isn’t the sole reason to go to Zermatt. There’s only a certain amount of time you can stare at the almighty, after all. Just down from Chalet Helion is the lift system that takes you up to the Sunnegga-Rothorn mountain. A train tunnel bores through the bare granite and, three minutes later, you emerge into a wonderland.

Sunnegga, the first stop, is above the treeline and at the top of the steep foothills that border one side of the village. From here, unlike down in the valley, you see that the Matterhorn is just one of dozens of massive, icy, knife-edged peaks above the resort. Directly in front of you rise four 4,000m-peaks, culminating in the Weisshorn, shaped like a gigantic shark’s fin and, at 4,512 metres, even higher than the Matterhorn. To the left, snowy pinnacles hint at even higher summits. To see those, we climbed into the
cable car to the very top of this lift system, the 3,100-metre high Unter Rothorn (recently rebranded as just Rothorn, but as there are three variations on Rothorn around here, I prefer to stick to its original name). We stepped out into eye-watering sunshine and crunched onto a patch of snow left over from winter: 3,100 metres is high indeed. The peeking peaks from the previous stop now revealed themselves as six huge mountains layered in unimaginably thick snow and ice, rising above the Gornergrat ridge in between us.

The highest of these, Monte Rosa, looked like a giant’s meringue, massive but without the character or shape of the others. At 4,634 metres, it makes up in heft what it lacks in shapeliness: you can make out the other face of Monte Rosa quite clearly when standing on the roof of Milan’s cathedral, more than 100 miles away. (As a comparison, Britain’s highest mountain, Ben Nevis, is 1,343 metres, and Germany’s highest, the Zugspitze, is 2,963 metres.)

Zermatt is famed for its mountain restaurants, but that morning I had gone shopping at the local Coop (which in Switzerland means amazing fresh, local ingredients, from radishes to mountain cheese), and we picnicked instead, sat on a rock by the side of a pewter-coloured lake, in which the Matterhorn was perfectly reflected. Here, at Stelisee, you are at peace with the mountains above and the valleys below. The sun bakes you, apart from an occasional wisp of wind which wafts down from the glacier like nature’s own cooling mist spray. Butterflies, bees and millions of grasshoppers play among the fields of wildflowers all around. Even the Matterhorn from here looks less dark, more pretty. Never has an air-dried beef sandwich with freshly grated horseradish tasted more perfect.

Chalet Chic:
Chalet Helion occupies the entire top floor of this traditional, pretty chalet building

Walking down, we came across another lake, Leisee, deep green in colour. Fittingly, amid the sea of wildflowers surrounding this one, was a confederacy of tiny green frogs. Not much bigger than an adult fingernail, you had to be careful not to tread on them as you walked along the path.

Dinner in Zermatt comes with reservations in both sense of the word: you need to book, as the place is heaving in season; and you always feel slightly annoyed that the restaurants, however well deserved their culinary reputation, have no Matterhorn view, as they are clustered in the village centre.

This was a further joy of Chalet Helion. On most nights we cooked, and ate and drank local Valais wine (vibrant Fendant whites, deep Cornalin reds) on our balcony or at the dining table with our private, picture window view of the mountain fading to grey. After which, a Havana on the balcony: one clear night we could make out the helmet lights of the night climbers on the sheer rockface of the mountain.

On one evening, Mountain Exposure’s charismatic owner, Donald Scott, a British snow- phile who came to Zermatt and never left, brought one of the company’s chefs to create us a fabulous, complex Swiss mountain meal. Our dining area was transformed into a restaurant, an option open to any guest who pays.

We will certainly be back, for the view from Chalet Helion, and its entire experience, is as eternal as it is wondrous.

Chalet Helion is available summer and winter from Mountain Exposure, mountainexposure.com. For general information, see zermatt.ch

SPA AT MONT CERVIN PALACE

For decades Mont Cervin Palace has been the byword for glamour for all visitors to Zermatt. A well-kept secret is that this five-star hotel in the heart of the village has a beautiful, 25-metre indoor pool, and an outdoor spa pool and garden as part of its hidden annexe. The garden and outdoor pool (which is open year-round) have a dramatic view of the mountains from the village centre, and the indoor pool and hydrotherapy area are the best places in the valley to retreat to when the weather closes in – or if you want some cross-training exercise after a day’s skiing and hiking. The best news? They are open to non-residents, for a fee. montcervinpalace.ch

Gstaad: Alpine chic with a twist

Gstaad has a reputation as a gentle place, perhaps more suited to high net worth retirees wanting a peaceful and safe place close to their money (in Swiss bank accounts) in which to holiday. But that reputation vanished before my eyes as soon as I set foot into the garden of The Alpina hotel.

The Hills are Alive:
Wildflowers fill the alpine meadows around Gstaad during the summer months

Before me, a long outdoor pool, lined by teak decking and a few (not too many – this is Gstaad) sunloungers. Around it was a garden in full bloom; beyond that the rooves of this traditional village (The Alpina is on a small plateau above the centre), all framed by an amphitheatre of forest, meadow and mountain. Far away were high rocky peaks and glaciers. It was hot in the sun, and a first morning spent in and by the pool, accompanied by the occasional cocktail, was bliss due to true exclusivity. At that moment, in any number of luxury Mediterranean hotels, super- wealthy guests would be jostling for space by the poolside in neat rows, trying to attract the attention of overstressed serving staff, waiting far too long for their drinks to arrive.

We, on the other hand, had the attention of numerous waiters (there were a few other guests, but more than enough staff to deal with them) and sufficient space to have a conversation about my tax affairs on my phone with no danger of anyone overhearing (not that I would be so vulgar).

Mountain Highs: Gstaad rewards summertime
visitors with verdant valleys framed by snow-capped peaks

Suite Dreams:
Swiss artisans have created the interiors at The Alpina, using local stone and period woodwork

Wandering inside a neat little chalet, we found stairs to take us down to a cavernous and exquisitely finished spa area. One corridor led to a salt room, where even the walls were seemingly made of salt, another to the treatment rooms, and another to a quiet cafe area lined with photographic books and jugs containing various herb-flavoured waters.

Beyond that, another pool, inside the cavern, some 25 metres long, bookended by spa pools and crowned by a glass cupola looking into the garden above. If the weather ever failed, this would be the place to spend the day, as we discovered the next day when a thunderstorm swept in. The Alps form the border of the hot Mediterranean climate zone and rainy northern Europe, and you can feel the battle between one and the other, day by day.

When the sun reappeared we headed up the round, green mountain facing us – more a fairytale hill than a dramatic Alp – in a gondola and found a large chalet restaurant, Wispile, serving fondues made with cheese from the chalet’s own cows, clearly visible in the pasture above. The view was over the village and the wooded foothills and forests beyond, out towards Lake Geneva. Wispile also has a menagerie of animals, from llamas to pigs and goats, which families can help to feed.

If Wispile is all that you expect from a Swiss Alpine hut, the evening offering at The Alpina is something else entirely. The owners of this new uber-luxe hotel, which was clearly built to compete with, if not actually outdo, the celebrated Palace hotel down the road, wanted the best of world cuisine in a village not renowned for its cosmopolitan food offerings.

For MEGU, a Japanese restaurant in the heart of the hotel that is an outpost of the celebrated New York establishment of the same name, they enticed and employed master chefs from Japan. It shows: the sushi was magnificent. A taste that I will try and remember for the rest of my life is the signature crispy asparagus with crumbed Japanese rice crackers, chilli and lemon. The Oriental salad (various Chinese vegetables, nuts, seeds, sashimi of Dover sole and sesame oil) was also unique and memorable. Stone-grilled wagyu chateaubriand with a fresh (not powdered) wasabi soy reduction was also fabulously vibrant. I’d take MEGU over Nobu and Zuma, if only it were in London.

There was also Sommet, the hotel’s other signature restaurant, which holds two Michelin stars. It is hard to tell which is more important. Sommet has the better location, a big contemporary dining room with a view of pool and mountains, and seating on the broad terrace; MEGU is the cosy space behind the bar at the heart of the hotel. Sommet has 18/20 from the Gault et Millau guide and is refreshingly fuss- free. The seabass with artichokes, hazelnuts and spinach had simple, highly defined flavours, and the organic salmon steak with tomato and olive risotto was cooked with great attention to detail. Sommet’s chef has the confidence to let his quality ingredients, combinations and technique speak for themselves, and this is contemporary fine dining of the most appealing kind.

These were two of my most notable meals of the year, anywhere in the world, to the extent that I would make a journey to the hotel just to eat there, even if I couldn’t stay there. But for overall experience, they can’t quite match that of sitting by the outdoor pool, looking at the glowing green of the Alps, under the deep blue of the mountain sky, in utter peace, while sipping a perfectly made margarita, served by an unhassled staff member who knows exactly when to ask whether I’d like another one. That may not have been the first line of the owners’ business plan when they opened The Alpina, but they have succeeded in making Gstaad a true summer holiday destination beyond, I suspect, even their wildest dreams.

thealpinagstaad.ch

Driverless cars – this year’s big thing in automobiles – trade emotion for efficiency. Can the company that invented the motor car combine both? Caroline Davies speaks to Mercedes- Benz’s Dr Thomas Weber to find out

Tomorrow’s World:
The driverless Mercedes F 015 takes to the road

The world of autonomous – or, in lay parlance, self-driving – cars, which has been on the horizon for a few years, is finally threatening to become reality very soon. Self-accelerating, self-braking, self-navigating models will soon follow today’s self-parking models in to the marketplace. But motoring is, for a significant minority, more than just the least painful way to get from A to B: in the world of luxury, a car is an end in itself, not a utensil. And for them, Mercedes-Benz has created a striking concept car, snappily named the ‘F 015 Luxury in Motion’.

Not available in a showroom near you ever – its purpose is as a debating point and research showcase – the F 015 re-conceptualizes the purpose of a car. Tellingly, rather than reveal it at a motor show, Mercedes-Benz selected the Consumer Electronics Show (CES) in Las Vegas, the world’s biggest tech fest: a signal that this is not just a car. It is also the company’s riposte to latent threats by Apple, Google and other tech firms that they will disrupt the world of cars like they disrupted the world of the PC.

At the CES I spoke to Thomas Weber, effectively the global number two at Daimler, the parent company of Mercedes-Benz, about why they had developed it. “We asked ourselves, ‘What is luxury [motoring] in the future?’” he said. “It is time, space and access to information.” That was the driving force behind the future driving concept.

Meet the Mercedes: Dieter Zetsche, head of Mercedes- Benz and chairman of Daimler, unveiled the F 015 in Las Vegas

As the executive board member in charge of research and development for the world’s leading luxury car company, Weber’s view is carefully observed by industry watchers. The monolithic design of the car gives passengers the largest possible space, he says. The inside, upholstered in white leather and open-pore walnut wood, has four rotating chairs, allowing guests to look at the road or each other. The door panels are touch screen, allowing passengers to call up contacts, information, the route, music or points of interest along the way. Unlike the original cars Google produced, there’s a steering wheel, should you feel the need to take over. Also unlike Google’s cars, it feels like a car, not a disposable electronic device.

The car is, in part, a response to what Mercedes-Benz feels will be one of the major issues of the future: a burgeoning urban population. As the world moves to live in the city, roads will become increasingly congested. An automated car provides two solutions to the problem. Firstly, it gives the passenger time back, free to do what they want instead of driving. Secondly, it allows for cars to be shared; once a car has dropped off one passenger, it is free to collect another rather than sit in a car park.

“If you want to create more than only a car, then you have to do more than only look at the car,” says Weber. “You have to ask what a city in 2030 will look like. We know that more than 50 per cent of all people will live in crowded urban areas. Then what happens? What will the customer do in their car? You have to understand their lifestyle. The car is part of your daily life, your digital companion.”

Weber believes that while a self-driving car from Mercedes may be an efficient space when it is driving itself, it will still provide pleasure when you want it to, unlike other modes of transport. He does not believe that driving will become obsolete.

“[Transport autonomy] will happen in taxis and trains but not in the car,” he says. “It is comparable to skiing. Everyone takes the lift to the top, but the enjoyable part – downhill – you want to do yourself.”

City Slicker:
The Mercedes F 015 could revolutionize urban life

Admittedly, a machine would in most circumstances be a better driver than any human; they don’t get tired, distracted or forget which side of the road they should be on. Accidents could reduce to near zero; insurance, too. “We need autonomous driving to realize our vision of accident-free driving,” says Weber. “With sensors and these machines we can mitigate most of the critical situations where accidents happen.”

There are still issues – technological and legal – to iron out before these cars will be on the road. “There is a concern that some of our colleagues will do certain steps too early and terrible accidents could happen based on poorly realized autonomous cars,” says Weber. “If that happens then we could be forbidden from developing these cars. We need to do everything possible to mitigate these early failures.”

One such issue is strong internet signal; creating a bandwidth strong enough to control a full highway requires creating this digital infrastructure. Manufacturers will also have to wait until the legal framework is in place. Who is to blame if an autonomous car hits a pedestrian? What if a car was faced with a moral dilemma: for example, a mother pushes a baby in a pram into the path of an autonomous car on one side, as a cyclist is overtaking it on the other. Which way should it be pre-programmed to go? An autonomous car, for all its computing power, will not make decisions of its own: it will do what it has been told to do.

Weber is keen to have these discussions early. “Legal discussion, social discussion, acceptance discussion – these things take time,” he says. “But we have cars on sale with first situations of this technology. We have a road map.” The first autonomous cars will probably be developments of today’s self-parking cars, with drivers taking control at times.

Legislators have already started thrashing out these details and manufacturers have begun to steadily introduce autonomous elements, easing the population into the idea with the expectation that fully autonomous cars will be on the road as early as 2025. For many, that remains a frightening thought, but we have been entrusting our lives to aeroplane autopilots for years. At least style needn’t be a worry; with Weber in charge, autonomous cars will have plenty of panache.

The Luxury Travel Issue, Summer 2015

Monaco is the place where yachtsmanship and money combine in an intoxicating and irresistible blend. Millie Walton is charmed by the sailors and owner of Maserati’s record-breaking yacht

Siren of the Seas: The VOR70 shows all the hallmarks of Maserati’s design prowess

The crew of the 70ft Maserati Yacht VOR70 are sitting around a table at Bistrot Le Bouchon, one of Monaco’s more understated restaurants. They have just sailed in from Barcelona and are sporting bodily evidence of the journey – a torn-off fingernail here, a badly swollen wrist there. But they speak with excitement about the boat’s ambitious 2015 racing programme, which culminates in the infamously challenging Rolex Sydney–Hobart Yacht Race, between mainland Australia and Tasmania.

Strike a pose, there’s nothing to it – the market in photography is booming like never before, and even major museums, art institutions and auction houses want to get in on the action. Collectors take heed, says our columnist Jean-David Malat

Tony Kelly: ‘Body Builders’ for ‘L’Officiel Hommes’, Germany (September 2014)

The art market used to be very cautious about photography, but the tendency is now shifting – The Telegraph reported a 36 per cent increase of auction sales of photography in 2014. Slowly but steadily, the market and its collectors are opening up to fine art photography. On the one hand, this means that prices for artworks of this genre are going up and that we are witnessing auction records more and more regularly – how to forget Andreas Gursky’s Rhein II (1999), which became the most expensive photograph ever sold at auction when it reached $4.3 million at Christie’s New York in 2011? On the other hand, however, one notices that this young market is still relatively much more affordable than the market for fine art painting or sculpture, for example. This makes it a very attractive field, therefore, for the new collectors and art professionals, who observe a real desire for fine art photography internationally.

Reaffirming the market’s observations, major museums and trusted institutions have also been giving much more attention to the photographic genre, with large-scale exhibitions of historical and contemporary fine art photography. Founded in 1971 The Photographers’ Gallery underwent a major expansion in 2012, which made it the largest public gallery in London dedicated to photography. It focuses its activity on promoting emerging talents, conserving historical archives and exhibiting established photography artists.

This summer another landmark of the UK’s art and culture scene, London’s National Portrait Gallery, will launch an exhibition entirely devoted to photography of Audrey Hepburn. ‘Audrey Hepburn: Portraits of an Icon’ will feature a selection of more than 60 photographs, including classic and rarely seen prints by leading photographers such as Richard Avedon, Cecil Beaton, Terry O’Neill, Norman Parkinson and Irving Penn.

Responding to this tangible – even pressing – demand from collectors, Opera Gallery has historically supported contemporary photographers: Gérard Rancinan, Olivier Dassault, Fani Alireza and Zoé Flore among others. More recently, the gallery started working with major figures of the genre. In Monaco in 2013 we held an exhibition by Terry O’Neill, one of the world’s most collected photographers whose work hangs in national art galleries and private collections worldwide. Since 2014 we are also delighted to be able to offer works by David LaChapelle to our clients. Probably one of the most famous living photographers, LaChapelle has exceptional talent combining a unique hyper-realistic aesthetic with profound social messages. He is also very prominent for his striking and stylish portraits of celebrities, of course!

Gavin Bond: Shot for ‘GQ’ Mexico (February 2015)

Alongside what one could call ‘traditional’ art photography, fashion photography has made an entrance and is demanding its letters of nobility. And collectors across the world are responding with eagerness and enthusiasm!

It is this realization that made us at Opera Gallery London decide to curate an exhibition of contemporary photography, shining a light on some of the most sought-after artists of the field. Titled ‘Raw Footage’, the exhibition focuses on fashion-turned-art photography as well as on celebrity portraiture, both of which are fascinating evidence of the evolution of our cultural history. We have sourced works by some of the hottest fashion photographers of the moment, such as Vincent Peters, Tony Kelly, Mario Testino, David LaChapelle, Gavin Bond, Greg Williams, Simon Emmett, Douglas Kirkland and, of course, UK sweetheart Rankin.

Through the selected works, we interrogate how fashion photographers and their collaborators – designers, stylists, models and viewers – participate in disseminating our culture and defining our aesthetics. Alongside them, we will feature other photography geniuses: Nicolas Guérin and his mesmerizing ‘Polaroid Dreams’ series; Paul Solomons who, although he comes from the fashion world, takes a very different approach to photography, working with repetition and pattern-making; and Gérard Rancinan, self-described “active witness” to humanity, who states he works against the obliteration of our collective memory. All of these fascinating and inspiring image- makers are being brought together to capture an image of our times and to shine a light on beauty and its unattainable status.

Beyond that, the exhibition will reaffirm our strong confidence in the burgeoning market of photography, as an art that is both affordable – an aspect that is especially attractive to new collectors – and also a rather safe and sound investment: ArtTactic reported in June 2014 that “the confidence in the Contemporary Photography market continues to improve with an increase of 10 per cent since December 2013, reaching the highest reading since March 2011”. And if a photograph is also depicting a scene, celebrity or subject you admire and can lose yourself in, then the investment is doubly positive: a financial placement as well as an emotional commitment.

Jean-David Malat is an art dealer and curator, and the director of London’s Opera Gallery. operagallery.com

Presiding over a global restaurant empire, spanning Bahrain to Boston, Wolfgang Puck is one of the world’s most celebrated chefs. He speaks to Alice Clarke about food, family, canned pineapple and Coco Chanel

Top Tables
Wolfgang Puck’s restaurants include Hotel Bel-Air in Los Angeles (above), and CUT at 45 Park Lane, London

Alice Clarke: Did you love cooking as a child?
Wolfgang Puck: My mother was a chef and I helped her to cook at home. I loved pastries and sweets more than anything back then. When I was 14 I left home to start an apprenticeship with a chef 50 miles away. That was a long way and it was hard when you had to work on the weekend and all your friends were playing or going skiing. It was only when I went to France that I realized that this is what I wanted to do. I was working in a restaurant in Provence called L’Oustau de Baumanière, which had three Michelin stars and was run by the legendary Raymond Thuilier.

AC: Do you look back and think of Thuilier as your mentor?
WP: Yes, he was in a way. I remember when I came to Los Angeles with a friend who’d also worked there and we said, ‘OK, we’re going to open a restaurant like Baumanière’.

AC: It’s interesting to see how some chefs have been so influenced by those who they trained under.
WP: Well, I think you get into a certain style and if you’re happy with it, you don’t change. For me it was different – I always tried to experiment and do new things. That’s why I’ve been married three times! Just kidding… But with regards to restaurants, I was interested in so many different things. After I’d opened Spago [in West Hollywood in 1982] I didn’t want to open another branch next, that would be too boring. Instead, I wanted to have a Chinese restaurant, so I launched Chinois [in Santa Monica, 1983], which was the first Asian-American fusion restaurant. I didn’t even know how to make fried rice at the time but I said, ‘I’m going to learn my own way’.

Head Chef: Austrian born, Los Angeles-based Puck oversees almost 30 restaurants worldwide

AC: Is there one particular cuisine that you enjoy the most?
WP: I love spices, but I also love the simplicity of a restaurant like CUT [with branches in Beverly Hills, Las Vegas, London, Bahrain, Dubai and Singapore], where you know exactly what you’re getting and it’s the best quality. It’s almost like if you get a great dress and it fits perfectly, you don’t need too much jewellery. Or if you have great earrings, you don’t need a necklace or rings. Coco Chanel said that before you leave the house, you should take two things off; that way you’re going to look better. I think it’s the same with food. If we pair it down, make it more minimalistic, it’s often better.

AC: There seems to be a real movement towards organic, fresh, sustainable food at the moment. Are you on board with that?
WP: Well, I grew up on a farm in Austria, so when we had salad we got it from the garden, and if we had vegetable soup we picked some carrots, cauliflower, beans or whatever, cut them up and made soup. So for me, there has never been anything so new about that. What was exotic and interesting was canned pineapple. I remember the first time somebody bought me canned pineapple from Hawaii, I thought: ‘Wow that’s exotic, that’s amazing’. I opened it and ate it really slowly. When I was younger we went to the forest and picked raspberries, blueberries, blackberries and white strawberries. In early spring my mother planted radishes and things like that, so by Easter we had the first fresh salad. Now all of a sudden in America everyone talks about ‘from farm to table’. I’ve never known anything different!

Fresh Start: Proving breakfast is the most important meal of the day, CUT is also a top spot for brunch

AC: Do you cook to relax?
WP: Oh yes. When I tell people I cook at home they say, ‘What do you mean? Don’t you already do enough?’ But I really like it. My children love it, too. My nine-year-old loves food. If he doesn’t get out of bed, I tell him I’m going to make scrambled eggs without him. He jumps up, comes downstairs, breaks the eggs, and has to cook it with me.

AC: Are there any chefs at the moment who you are particularly impressed by?
WP: I think Grant Achatz is one of the most talented chefs in America. He makes his own thing, a little bit out there, but very interesting– like Heston [Blumenthal] with The Fat Duck.

AC: What is your latest cookbook about?
WP: Wolfgang Puck Makes it Healthy is about eating better and exercising. I go skiing with the likes of [downhill champion] Franz Klammer but for about nine years, even if we weren’t going fast, I had to keep stopping to breathe. Similarly, I was playing tennis in Maui, where it is quite hot and humid, and after about 10 minutes I had to sit down as I couldn’t breathe anymore. I thought to myself, ‘I have to change my lifestyle and also start to exercise and eat better’. This book is really a result of that.

AC: How do you get people to eat more healthily?
WP Even if you go to a cheap grocery store, that’s still better than buying canned or frozen food. We should say to ourselves, ‘Okay, I like rice, why don’t I buy brown rice’, which has more flavour and is better for you. And the same with pasta. Once you get used to eating wholewheat pasta, you realize it’s really tasty and all of a sudden you think regular pasta is bland. So little by little you can try things out and begin to understand what is good and not so good for you. I also think that, in America especially, the portion sizes are too big. People think they have to eat a lot, but they don’t. In fact, they say you actually live longer if you eat less.

AC: You do a lot of charity work. Can you tell us about your philanthropic endeavours?
WP:In 1982 we started to do events with some chefs and wineries, so we called it The American Food and Wine Festival. We donated the money raised to ‘meals on wheels’, which provides food for old people, for people who don’t have any money and so on. We then started a cancer benefit for people who can’t go to hospital for treatment. We do a big event in Las Vegas for Alzheimer’s sufferers, because my mother had Alzheimer’s. We also do a big event in Cleveland for children at a cancer clinic there, too. We do a lot of work with schools, plus my wife has an orphanage accommodating 700 children in Ethiopia. So that alone is quite a lot of work!

Shooting Stars: Spago in Beverley Hills is one of only three restaurants in LA to hold two Michelin stars

AC:Do you find it hard to juggle everything?
WP:Sometimes, yes, it’s complicated and difficult. I have very good people who have worked with me for a long time though, so that helps.

AC: What has been your favourite meal recently?
WP: I had dinner last night at Alain Ducasse’s latest restaurant at the Plaza Athénée in Paris. I liked it a lot because it was so different; it was a really interesting experience. Sometimes the whole experience is better than each dish. I told them I only had one hour and they served me 10 different dishes. Three-star fast food!

AC: Your first restaurant, Spago, opened in 1982. Do you still feel as inspired by food today as you were back then?
WP Oh yes, I still love it just as much. If not, I wouldn’t be here.

wolfgangpuck.com

The Water Issue, Winter 2015

Léa Seydoux, the French star who’s conquered Hollywood and is the new face of Prada Candy, speaks to Caroline Davies about childhood, perfume and Nietzsche