Robb Reportの October 2025 の目次

Cardinale, one of Napa Valley’s leading producers of Cabernet Sauvignon, has been a darling among serious collectors since it was founded in 1982. Despite producing only a single wine annually, it possesses one of California’s deepest cellars of library vintages—bottles held back well after their initial release, reserved for uncorking years or even decades in the future. Befitting such coveted stock, the winery has unveiled a renovated hilltop tasting room—appointed with stylish furnishings from the likes of Sonoma Millworks and Charleston Forge—that elevates what was already an exclusive drinking experience. The three appointment-only tastings available showcase the award-winning skill of winemaker Christopher Carpenter, who has worked there since 1998. Introductory sessions offer four glasses of its current releases; the Reserve Estate tasting puts the spotlight on its 10-year library collection;…

Powered by a minuscule engine consisting of tiny springs, diminutive gears, and screws so small they barely register to the human eye, the mechanical watch is an anachronistic vestige of a pre-digital age. But for dedicated collectors, such technological obsolescence isn’t a concern. Indeed, the drawbacks of these machines for the wrist-their reliance on a human being as an energy source, their lack of uniformity within identical reference numbers, even their oft-finicky nature-are what gives them their considerable charm. Still, the engineers at Audemars Piguet are clearly not Luddites: What, they wondered, could be done to lend a chronograph the tactile feel of a smartphone? Certainly that would go a long way toward improving a connoisseur’s wearing and operating experience. Ever since the 1970s, developments in serial production and waterproofing…

“Wait, your skin. I’m obsessed,” Sarah Akram says warmly when we meet for the first time. It’s the Sunday before the annual Met Gala in New York City, and the willowy 43-year-old has spent her weekend preparing the world’s most recognizable faces for the event’s red carpet. Now, she has her hands on my not-at-all-famous mug to give Robb Report an exclusive preview of her latest project: a rigorously customized facial she has been developing with Dior for the past two years. The $1,300 service, unironically called the Haute Couture Treatment, is the most exclusive offering at the French maison’s first permanent spa in the United States, which sits atop its recently renovated Manhattan flagship on 57th Street. (While Akram is based in the nation’s capital, she’ll travel to New…

Although Bugatti has gone through more than one stall and restart in its 116-year history, it has continued to define the supercar, each iteration demanding a new set of superlatives. So it’s fitting that, to wind down the era of the French marque’s groundbreaking W16 engine, it developed the maximalist Mistral, an ode to open-air motoring that recently set a roofless speed record of 282 mph and starts at about $5.8 million. Introduced in 2022, with all 99 examples already spoken for, the model began deliveries this February, giving Robb Report the chance to pilot one. While this herculean roadster employs the same 1,578 hp quad-turbocharged engine found in the Chiron Super Sport 300+, it gains the visual plot twist of scoops, contours, and vents that lend a more charismatic…

While most of the other luxury-hotel brands have opted for relatively staid vessel designs, Four Seasons I takes a more daring approach—striking a balance between a superyacht and a futuristic cruise ship. The element that sets the 95-suite 679-foot ship apart is its signature Funnel Suite, reminiscent of the smokestacks of early-20th-century ocean liners. Spanning nearly 10,000 square feet across the tops of four decks, the atriumlike structure is a first of its kind. “We designed it for the Maserati Effect,” says Fredrik Johansson, partner and executive director of Stockholmbased Tillberg Design, referring to the phenomenon in which inanimate objects—like a classic Maserati—provoke visceral reactions. The studio worked closely with Four Seasons to create a dramatic visual statement that would extend the hotel brand’s D.N.A. to the water. “We really…

When Jean Schlumberger perched a diamond-encrusted bird atop a cabochon lapis lazuli stone for Bunny Mellon in 1965, he probably thought the resulting brooch would be a one-off. But the creation was so popular that other grandes dames of international society were soon donning their own versions-affixed to semiprecious and precious stones such as aquamarine and morganite. Today, the late designer likely would be surprised to learn that one of his most enduring works has experienced a cool-factor renaissance. What was once a high-jewelry offering reserved for female socialites and V.I.P.s has more recently become a must-have tuxedo accessory for Hollywood gentlemen hitting the red carpet. It has proved so successful that, in 2023, it was reimagined as a line of necklaces, pendants, rings, and earrings. Now, the company has…

FIFTEEN YEARS AGO, Ed Stafford became the first person to walk the entire length of the Amazon River—nearly 4,000 miles on foot. Now, via this exclusive package with The Vault, he invites you back to the jungle with him for a fourday survival adventure like no other, one that epitomizes his philosophy for living. “It’s about embracing life, rather than being scared of dying,” he explains. “Before I walked the length of it, I had never been there, but the Amazon had always had a mystique surrounding it, to me,” says the British adventurer and TV host, currently based in Central America with his wife and four children. “Now I feel at home, and it’s my playground. It’s somewhere that makes me smile the moment I step into the jungle.”…

When the G800 was publicly unveiled in 2021, the world was a different place. The increasing scale of global conflict has changed all that. The original objective of the new Gulfstream, an update of the popular G650ER, was simply to secure its position as aviation’s farthest-flying business jet with a range of 8,000 nautical miles. At the time, Bombardier had yet to announce its range-matching Global 8000, so the G800’s ability to go such a distance almost seemed like overreach. Even most versions of the intercontinental Boeing 747 cannot match that metric. As Gulfstream readies the first example of the G800 for delivery, the growing number of no-fly zones has proved the utility of flying farther without stops. “Conflicts have changed the way we connect cities,” says Scott Evans, Gulfstream’s…

Few motorsport specialists have achieved the range and record—from class wins at Le Mans to multiple World Rally Championships—of U.K.-based Prodrive. Now the team is preparing Aston Martin’s GT competition cars and is the technical partner on Land Rover’s new Defender desert racer, which will compete in this year’s Dakar Rally. Yet when founder David Richards—a former Formula 1 team principal—set out to build a simulator, he wanted more than a utilitarian training tool. He envisioned a piece that racers and enthusiasts alike would welcome into their homes, not banish to the garage. To realize that goal, he turned to acclaimed British automotive designer Ian Callum—formerly Jaguar’s design director for 20 years—who styled the original Prodrive Racing Simulator that was unveiled in 2022. With a carbonfiber tub suspended from an…

IT WAS THE MOST mortifying moment in my career as an automotive journalist—so embarrassing that I hesitate to put it on record. I’d flown into Glasgow Airport late one night in early January 2023 and driven north to a hotel in the Scottish Highlands. Snow swirled in the beams of the headlamps, and the pale moonlight hinted at the vast, bleak moors and mountainsides around me. As I arrived at the Kingshouse Hotel, a colossal but curious and gentle red stag emerged from the darkness to greet me. I’d come to test the inaugural Ineos Grenadier for Robb Report, and this seemed the perfect location to finally meet this rugged, idiosyncratic, much-delayed, and very British new off-roader. The full beauty of the landscape was revealed as dawn broke, and as…

“You can see yourself in a pearl. It’s not like any other stone,” Mohamed al-Mahmood says with a smile. Then, he produces a showstopper from a red-velvet-lined box: The distorted yet highly sought-after form is known as a baroque pearl. It’s set in a necklace that will sell for $3.5 million. Mahmood is standing in the inner sanctum of his family’s jewelry store in Bahrain, a 274-square-mile island nation in the Persian Gulf that has been synonymous with natural pearls for centuries. It’s also a destination that American travelers can now reach easily for the first time. In October, Gulf Air inaugurated a direct flight to the country, departing three times weekly from New York’s JFK. Robb Report Travel Master Cari Gray of Gray & Co. says that many of…

From a young age, André Mellone knew he was destined to be a creative. Born and raised in São Paulo, he grew up surrounded by great craftsmanship thanks in large part to his father, the acclaimed industrial designer Oswaldo Mellone. After studying at Syracuse University and spending a formative year in Florence immersed in classical design, Mellone landed in New York City and began his career at Robert A. M. Stern Architects. From there, he moved fluidly between penning buildings and interiors. After some persuading from friends, he launched Studio Mellone in 2012, making a name for himself with masculine spaces that are both thoughtfully composed and quietly dramatic. His portfolio spans everything from private homes to boutiques for clients such as the 1916 Company, Fernando Jorge, and Thom Browne.…

IN THE TWO decades since founding Fromental—a British wallpaper house with studios in London and China— Tim Butcher and Lizzie Deshayes have tackled a roster of colorful projects. Among them: the lobby of London’s Goring Hotel, featuring a monkey in a barrister’s wig and a unicorn that got its final brushstroke from Catherine, then Duchess of Cambridge; various rooms aboard the 400-foot Lürssen superyacht Kismet; and Scotland’s Glenmorangie House, where the husband-and-wife duo transformed the inn’s morning room into a honey-colored echo of the distillery’s single-malt whiskies. But Butcher—who once wove, printed, and hand-painted silks for menswear brands and couture houses— is most proud of the design seen on these pages, called Paradiso. In it, bamboo shoots weave through branches of peonies and delicate blossoms while birds and butterflies drift…

At first glance, the difference between a cruise ship and a yacht seems obvious. One conjures images of a floating city built for the masses; the other, of exclusivity and intimacy. But now some of the world’s most prominent hotel brands are muddying the waters. The Ritz-Carlton, Four Seasons, Aman, and Orient Express have all marketed their new vessels as “yachts” to set them apart from cruise ships. But are they? “Anytime that cabins are sold individually, or there are groups on board that are independent of each other, that is just not yachting,” says Alexander Coles, cofounder and senior broker of Bespoke Yacht Charter. “That is a cruise ship, however high the level.” For traditionalists like Coles, yachting means tailoring every element—menus, destinations, activities, even formality— to an owner…

Deep within the hills of Southern California’s Topanga Canyon, on an estate overlooking the Santa Monica mountains where wind chimes ring softly in the breeze, Lenny Kravitz is explaining the concept of an opium bed to me. When he was living in New York in the late 1980s, working on his debut album, he didn’t have much bread, he says in his rock-star parlance, but knew he wanted his home to be an artistic sanctuary, a place that could invigorate and hold his music. It was the first time he took his creative instincts seriously. He decorated the columns of his SoHo loft with broken mirrors he found on the street and painted the walls to look like wallpaper. One thing he did spend money on was the sleeping area,…

BEFORE HE WAS A FOUR-TIME World Series champion, five-time All-Star, and four-time Gold Glove winner with a certain baseball powerhouse in the Bronx, Bernie Williams went to a performing-arts high school. On a late-summer day, the 57-year-old Puerto Rican recalls his time at Escuela Libre de Música in San Juan with fondness. He still keeps in touch with former classmates, the years spent alongside them cementing music’s place in his life forever. But at 16, Williams was on a very different path from peers who would go on to become professional musicians, enter conservatories, or form a band or two: He signed with the New York Yankees, a decision that would lead him to become a generation-defining center fielder. “Not a lot of people in high school knew that I…

Jonathan Crystal was dangling his legs from a Deer Valley ski lift alongside his teenage son when he realized that an imminent windfall was about to radically shift the futures of his three children. His family had recently agreed to sell Crystal & Company, a Wall Street insurance brokerage his grandfather founded in 1933. Three generations had grown the risk-management firm to 11 offices nationwide until economics and technology combined in 2018 to create the right moment to sell. Crystal chose the solitude of the lift to tell his son, who replied, “Does that mean you and Uncle Jamie and Uncle Sandy and GPa aren’t going to work together anymore?” Then another repercussion dawned on him. “I guess I’m not going to have a chance to work with you.” “And…