I CAME HERE FOR THE WINE THERAPY. Wine therapy is not downing a bottle, having a good cry, and healing your inner child. Wine therapy is a super ingenious body treatment invented in this place east of Venice. While all the region’s winemakers are using the vineyards to produce such favorites as prosecco and amarone, these spa scientists have different ideas about the grape.

Which is why I am laying here as Lianna paints me with slick goo from toe to neck. The goo is made from fermented grapes and contains a prezioso ingredient: resveratrolo. Resveratrolo that will exfoliate me, anti-inflammatory me, re-collagenize me, and pump up my serotonins so my mood will be lifted. It’s the “aroma-emotional path” of the Grand Hotel Abano Terme and I am on it.

“Your miracles, Abano, give speech to the mute,” sang Claudius when he soaked in the waters here thousands of years ago. Roman emperors, thrilled to find 130 thermal springs in the surrounding Euganean hills, built baths. They slathered themselves with mud and sang the praises of its miraculous healing properties. They indulged in their own version of wine therapy, guzzling it and honoring Bacchus. They named this spot Abano, from the word aponos, without pain.

Now what you find here is termalismo moderno, modern thermalism that puts a cutting edge style on what Romans adored in olden days. Thermal waters pump through hydro-jets in curative Jacuzzis. Mud is treated like wine, maturing so it develops algae that has unique anti-inflammatory properties. And as for the grapes, it’s all about extracting that miraculous resveratrolo. A recent addition, the Venezia Spa, is a wonderland of mosaic rooms with a series of saunas, cold alley, aromatherapy showers, and chromotherapy lighting that’s all set up to recharge body and soul.

The Grand Hotel Abano Terme is the only five-star amidst the many hotel/spas in Abano, and its focus is anti-aging treatments. I winced as I put myself in for it, being from Los Angeles, land of the obsessive quest for eternal youth, where places like this can get pushy and expensive. But there’s a kinder, gentler spirit to it here. The three-hour wine therapy, that went from that resveratrolo to mud-packing to massage cost me about a third of what I’d pay for anything that would come close to it back in the States.

Why haven’t we Americans heard of this place, when Germans and Russians are joining the Italians to fill it up? Because the town of Abano gets a grade of charm-minus. The forested hills that surround it are lovely, but it was built up for tourism in the 1970s. Its streets are lined with concrete-block multi-storied hotel/spas, like a low-key Vegas. Everything is prettily landscaped with palm trees and other tropical plants, but there’s zilch Old-World ambience or fabulous art like you’ll find in abundance everywhere else in the Veneto region. The appeal here is the bargain deluxe digs, extraordinary spa treatments, and lovely service every step of the way. It’s a great base to explore the treasures of Padua (ten minutes by train), or the hotel can arrange for you to get to prettier places nearby and go horseback riding or golfing.

The Grand Hotel Abano Terme is grand in an Empire Louis XIV meets Sheraton-of-the-1970s way. There are grand chandeliers all over the place, meals are lavish buffets, loaded with fresh fish, lots of nicely prepared vegetables, and the finest Veneto wines.

There are also corny details to add amusement. Right off the lobby is a formal glassed-in smoking room—in a spa! Opposite it is a matching room furnished with felt tables for card games, where I got a nostalgic hit thinking of my mother’s bridge club, when I peeked in to see a senior-citizen foursome enjoying themselves. At dinner, there was a fashion show, where sleek-haired goddesses with legs up to their ears strutted around modeling furs—a big business for designers of the area.

The stellar thing about this place is excellent treatments for excellent prices. When I arrived home a week after my wine therapy, and met my friend Monica for a welcome back glass of wine, the first words out of her mouth were: “You’re glowing!”

Grand Hotel Abano Terme: www.gbhotelsabano.it