Twelve of the finest boats to emerge from the Cannes and Monaco shows
More than 100 new yachts — from tenders to gigayachts — were introduced in two of the French Riviera’s most beautiful harbours.
Related articles
The Cannes Yachting Festival and Monaco Yacht Show have marked the official starts of the yachting season, with more than 100 new yachts — from tenders to gigayachts — introduced in two of the French Riviera’s most beautiful harbors. Cannes has always been the launching point for midsized yachts, and this year was no different. The show saw 84 yachts making their global debuts. Cannes also saw many hulls in excess of 100 feet this year, with noteworthy premieres like the Azimut 35 Metri, Custom Line Navetta 33, and Sunseeker 131, among many others.
Given the dozens of launches, most observers agreed that this was the best Cannes yacht show in more than a decade.
The Monaco boat show had an entirely different character. Monte Carlo’s harbor accommodates fewer vessels, but the 100-plus superyachts gathered there carried an awe-inspiring presence — a collection of the best-designed custom yachts gathered in one place, with the opulence of Monaco’s hills as the backdrop. Beyond the harbor, 300-foot-plus gigayachts too large for the show were anchored offshore. Like Cannes, Monaco was considered a banner show, with visitors from all over the world coming to see yachting’s finest collection.
Here are a dozen samplings of the best of both boat shows.
Azimut 35 Metri
The Azimut 35 Metri, shown at both Cannes and Monaco, is the new flagship of the Azimut Grande line. The Stefano Righini design has an edgy, angular exterior with dark windows that define the profile and a raised pilothouse that gives the superstructure the sleek look of a performance motor yacht rather than the boxier dimensions of a typical flybridge vessel. The 115-footer’s carbon-fibre superstructure and hardtop — rarities on yachts of this size — add structural integrity while dramatically lowering weight. That allowed Righini to design a “wide-body” interior without compromising its 25.5-knot top speed. At 10 knots, the 35 Metri has a range of 2,414 kilometres.
Floor-to-ceiling windows in the saloon flood the interior with natural light. The master suite also has floor-to-ceiling windows, including one that folds outward to become a private terrace. Features like the three-floor spiral staircase with backlit onyx steps, lifting platform on the foredeck, and option to add another 30-square-metre deck are features more for the gigayacht than the typical 100-footer. Azimut always pushes the design envelope, but this is a significant leap forward for the Italian builder.
Custom Line Navetta 33
Custom Line’s new Navetta 33 is a radical reinvention of the typical Italian Navetta-style boat. Instead of a cumbersome, trawler-like vessel, the four-deck Custom Line is sleek and ship-like in appearance, with all the features one can expect on a modern superyacht. The design team — which included Piero Ferrari of the famed sports car dynasty, Studio Zuccon International Project, and the Ferretti Group’s in-house engineering group — came up with a bold new concept that mates a seaworthy hull to a contemporary exterior that includes a full-featured flybridge (with lounges, wet bar, sunbeds, and swimming pool), a generous foredeck with lounges and sun beds, and two exterior aft cockpit spaces on the main and upper decks.
Navettas have traditionally been designed with simple, down-home styles, but this 108-footer’s interior is contemporary Italian, with natural black-walnut paneling covering the walls along with colorful modern artwork and stainless trim. The lower saloon (there is a second saloon on the deck above) encompasses about a third of the 110-foot hull length, so the social and dining areas have an unusually large sense of space. The forward master suite is nearly the same length and includes a walk-in closet, full-beam bathroom, and desk and vanity in the bedroom.
The sense of opulence in this master is rarely seen on yachts this size and are certainly not the traditional Navetta style. But the Navetta 33 does share traits with its predecessors, including a blue-water hull that has a 3,218-kilometre range with twin 1,043 kW MAN engines. The Dual-Mode Transom is a great benefit for long-distance cruisers; the rear swim platform drops below the water, flooding the garage for simple tender launching. It also creates a submersible platform if guests want access to the water from the now-expanded beach club area. The revolution will continue next year when Custom Line launches its 138-foot Navetta 42.
Riva Rivale 56
Riva’s new 56 Rivale is the ultimate ocean cruiser, with a high, protected bow and planing hull that can reach 38 knots with twin 895 kW MAN engines. The intricate, open cockpit is exceptionally well-designed. The double-size white sun bed at the stern, surrounded by teak stairs on either side, carries the Rivale’s simple, elegant look, while, further forward, two white lounges sit along the port side of the hull. A wet bar and exterior galley are along the other side. Like all Rivas, details distinguish the brand.
The Rivale’s helm station has an all-glass, touchscreen cockpit, stainless steering wheel with a white leather cover, throttles placed discreetly along the side, and air-conditioning vents for hot weather. The slender, black roll bar with a black radome on top is equal parts artistic and functional. Teak defines the cockpit and walkways to the bow, leading to another double sun bed. Even the 56’s bow is fine art, with a sculpted steel horn and teak panel on the foredeck with a beautiful angular pattern.
The Rivale 56 also has technical details that are complex to engineer but do not impede the simple look. The swim platform submerges beneath the water to allow the tender to be unloaded. When the platform is down, steps designed into the port-side hull allow people to climb up from the water. This simple but ingenious solution allowed Riva to do away with the ladder that typically clutters the stern. In the same way, an electrohydraulic bimini top slides in and out from the sides for instant shade, disappearing when not needed.
The Rivale’s interior is defined by dark mahogany, lacquered hardwoods, dark leather coverings, and white fabrics that convey a sense of richness without being flashy. The two staterooms employ similar colour schemes and include white-leather-covered headboards and dark leather bedside tables. The crew quarters can be replaced by a third guest stateroom by owners who operate their own Rivali. The beautiful Riva was shown at both Cannes and Monaco.
Sunseeker Predator 57 MK II
U.K. builder Sunseeker introduced its Predator 57 MK II at the Cannes show, displaying exactly why the Predator series remains unique in the yachting sector. Aggressive, elegant, and fast, the 57 MK II is defined by the curves of its hardtop and extensive use of glass. Even the hardtop has an opening sunroof that covers almost a third of the overhead space. It lets in wind and sun on beautiful days, but the 57 MK II buttons up nicely for total climate control. Sunseeker added pillar-less windows to its previous 57 (the MK II stands for Mark 2), allowing for sweeping views of the ocean.
The patio door to the cockpit has also been engineered to drop down into the sole, turning the entire deck into a large open space. The mini beach club at the transom — with its integrated barbecue, overhead shower, and fold-down seating — is an option that adds a new component of user-friendliness to the swim platform. Belowdecks, the full-beam master suite and forward VIP stateroom are both en suite, along with a third stateroom with twins. The 57 MK II also has a captain’s quarters. Living up to its name, the Predator can reach 40 knots, with the ability to carve turns like a much smaller speedboat.
Mulder Delta One
Delta One’s vertical bow, high bulwarks, and protected foredeck have an oceangoing, almost ship-like look, and for a 118-foot yacht, it is impressive. The vessel is one of the few yachts its size with transatlantic range, and on its North Sea trials, the yacht successfully battled 4-metre-high waves and Force Six winds. Despite the weather, Mulder’s all-aluminum yacht still managed to reach a top end of 16.8 knots, with a 15-knot cruising speed.
The fast-displacement hull by Van Oossanen Naval Architects is designed for tough conditions and long distances, but U.K. designer Claydon Reeves made sure Delta One could dish out maximum R&R in sunny climes. “We pushed hard to redefine what can be achieved in a vessel under 300 gross tons,” said Mike Reeves, one of the designers.
On the sky bridge, an eight-person Jacuzzi, wet bar, dining table, sun beds, and lounges are protected by a hardtop for jaunts through the Mediterranean and Caribbean. The designers also made full use of the yacht’s 8-metre beam, particularly in the open-plan saloon and forward in the master suite. With walk-in closets and an en-suite bathroom, the master also offers private access to a seating area in the bow. Floor-to-ceiling windows in the saloon and dining area enhance natural light, and a foldout terrace adds another meaning to alfresco dining. Another differentiator on this yacht is the full-headroom beach club with its own bar and day head. For its size, Delta One will be a great example of what can be accomplished in the mini-superyacht class.
ISA Clorinda
Clorinda was an important launch for the Italian ISA brand because it was the first to be built under its new owner, Palumbo Shipyards. A crossover between the older ISA Sport 120 and a fresh design by Enrico Gobbi, Clorinda has unusual details like glass inserts on the exteriors and a forward “solarium” that fills the saloon with light. The split-level master suite is also unusual for a 120-footer, with a large bedroom on the main deck and an en suite bathroom three steps down in the lower level. This design adds an important separation to the master, making it feel as if it should be on a larger yacht.
Clorinda’s three 16V 2000 M96 MTU engines are connected to twin KaMeWa water jets and a centreline booster to reach speeds up to 33 knots — light speed for a boat this size — and turn with the agility of a much smaller yacht. Clorinda made its debut in Cannes but continued to wow crowds at Monaco.
Lürssen Areti
Lürssen is known for stopping the show at Monaco, and this year it didn’t disappoint with the 279-foot Areti. Winch Design gave Areti a quasi-classical profile, with a high-riding forward section and tall radar tower on the sun deck. The hull is cream-coloured and balanced by the white superstructure and gray accents. Areti’s owner chose this colour scheme to match his previous yachts. Winch describes the design as “beach chic,” with private terraces in guest staterooms and a full-service spa that includes a sauna, hot tub, full-depth plunge pool, meditation area, and an “experience” shower with multi-temperature water jets, therapy lights, and aromatherapy scents. Lürssen built Areti to the Passenger Yacht Code (PYC), so the boat has eight staterooms and a full-beam master suite.
The owner’s suite also has its own private deck, complete with a Jacuzzi, sun bed, and breakfast table. Just steps away, Areti’s bow helipad also allows for easy ship-to-shore transfers for the owners and guests.
Feadship Aquarius
Feadship’s 302-foot Aquarius is one of those yachts that literally takes your breath away. The profile by Sinot Exclusive Yacht Design has an almost retro look with the sleek, pointed hull, but it also has elements of modern design, with through-hull windows and upper decks that look as if they’re floating above full-length panels of glass. The owner, a serial yacht owner and art lover, wanted Aquarius to be awash in as much natural light as possible — partly to create a bright environment but also to show off his private collection.
The owner’s suite has his-and-her bathrooms, a media room, and a private balcony, and the five other guest suites were built to exacting specifications. The owner also made sure his 31 crew members would be comfortably housed in 14 crew cabins, a captain’s stateroom, and two cabins for the owner’s staff.
Rossinavi Aurora
Aurora’s 161-foot-long exterior has incorporated design cues from the auto-racing world that, rather than being distractions, worked well with one of the most stunning, contemporary profiles at Monaco. The custom yacht from the drawing board of Fulvio De Simoni was designed for an owner who loves sport and adventure. That was clear from De Simoni’s exterior, which includes two “cuts” shaped like sports-car vents at the front of the yacht. Those sizable openings provide protection and privacy for the foredeck terrace, and just plain look cool.
The yacht also has two owner’s suites, each with balconies. Aurora has a sunbathing area that De Simoni called the “beach salon,” which includes a dining space and sun lounges. Designer Achille Salvagni created a modern interior with vibrant-colored furniture, curved sections of the ceiling, and large picture windows that work well with the race-car exterior.
Aurora is powered by twin 2,580 kW MTU diesel engines, giving it a speed of 21 knots, with a maximum cruising range of 7,038 kilometres at 12 knots.
Turquoise Razan
There is an almost otherworldly sense of lightness around Razan, the custom yacht by Turquoise. The 155-footer has an elegant profile, but the proliferation of whites and off-whites, both inside and out, truly define the vessel. In the saloon, London-based H2 Yacht Design used these colours on the walls, ceilings, marble, rugs, and even the glass cabinet beside the dining table. The impression is that of a bright but formal room that runs counter to the current trends of high-contrast and informal design.
The full-beam owner’s suite has the same sense of brightness and space as the saloon, with much of the same colour palette. Unusual features like a large soaking tub and sink beside the master’s floor-to-ceiling windows set Razan apart. Another standout feature is the transom beach-club gym. It sits at sea level just feet away from the water when the aft hatch is raised. Guests on the treadmill or exercise bike will have the most inspirational workouts, being so close to the ocean.
Benetti Seasense
Benetti’s Seasense is arguably one of the best of the best at Monaco this year. The 220-foot custom superyacht has one-of-a-kind features like the “Benetti Beach Concept” and an “indoor-outdoor” veranda. The Beach Concept features a large swimming pool — measuring 10 by 4.2 metres — that converts into a basketball court with specially designed carbon-fibre and teak planks. The exterior by Dutch designer Cor D. Rover also includes the indoor-outdoor area.
The centrepiece between the indoor lounge and outdoor deck is a 12-person table surrounded by a system of sliding doors. These doors, along with floor-to-ceiling windows along the sides (which also open), provide a 360-degree view of the sea. Los Angeles design firm Area created a “sense of the sea” interior that incorporates more than 100 materials and multiple blue hues. The four woods, various marbles, and dozens of other materials were closely researched to add to the interior’s stunning impact.
Seasense’s sundeck has a covered, full-featured gym with access to a lounge with sofas, an American bar, and wood-burning pizza oven. The interior centrepiece is the gray Antartide Marble spiral staircase that has lighting under the stairs and a blue, wooden foundation with steel inserts that surrounds it.
Dynamiq GTT 115
Partnering with Studio Porsche to create the new GTT 115, Dynamiq employed the best designs from both the yachting and automotive worlds. “The GTT 115 is designed to appeal to car lovers and forward-thinking yacht owners who appreciate the advantages of speed, style, and our philosophy of intelligent performance,” said Roland Heiler, managing director of Studio Porsche. Design cues like the Targa-style mullions and transom that look like Porsche’s Mission E concept came straight from the car designers. Even the yacht’s deck cushions have a classic Pepita houndstooth pattern similar to Porsche’s most recent 991 R Edition. Exterior colours include Porsche Carrara white, Rhodium Silver, Chalk, and custom Monte Carlo blue.
Of course, the car analogies only go so far on when describing an oceangoing yacht. GTT stands for Grand Turismo Transatlantic. Vripack designed the outside profile, while Van Oossanen naval architects — both respected Dutch firms — created a highly efficient running surface. The GTT 115 at Monaco was powered by twin MAN engines attached to Fortjes 5000 pods that deliver a range of 5,296 kilometres at a friendly cruising speed. The top end is a highly respectable 25 knots.
Dynamiq’s online configurator lets potential owners customise their yachts. But the first GTT 115 had staterooms that combined saddle brown and Luxor beige leathers with carbon-fibre details along with large surfaces of Sahara Noir marble. Minotti, the Italian furniture maker, provided lounges, chairs, and other décor. Dynamiq wanted the GTT 115 to have a spacious feel, so it kept an open plan in the salon and included ceiling heights of more than 2 metre. “We kept that height even in the lower deck cabins,” Sergei Dobroserdov, Dynamiq CEO, said in Monaco. “That’s real luxury on a 35-metre yacht.”
Subscribe to the Newsletter
Recommended for you
This New Line of Megayachts Brings Modern, Loft-Style Living to the High Seas
Benetti’s first B.Loft model spans an impressive 213 feet
October 10, 2024
This New 111-Foot Hybrid Catamaran Is Topped With a Glass Hot Tub
The new flagship of the Ultima range is green, zippy, and just the right amount of glitzy.
September 30, 2024
You may also like.
You may also like.
How the Most Rare and Valuable Watches Are Traded Among Elite Collectors
Some of the world’s most interesting watches spend decades being traded privately before we learn about them.
Before social media became the lingua franca of the watch world, there were forums. And on those forums, collectors—especially collectors of vintage Rolex—often traded timepieces amongst each other.
The advent of Instagram in the early 2010s, coupled with the explosion in interest in vintage timepieces, drew attention to this corner of the watch world, and with that attention came increased competition for the finest examples. In the case of six- and seven-figure watches, high-end dealers, like James Lamdin, founder and vice president of vintage and pre-owned watches at Analog:Shift, became trusted intermediaries, negotiating sales for pieces not once or twice but often multiple times as they made the rounds of the collector community.
“There are watches out there that may not be massively rare by reference, but are by example,” Lamdin tells Robb Report. “Tropical patina, ghosted bezel, or celebrity provenance—it’s that watch. When those watches go into a collection, usually it’s with the implicit understanding that they’re valuable and people will want them from you and will make you a profit when you sell them.”
The best dealers have built relationships with collectors around the world and often have first right of refusal when those pieces come back to market. But even still, the most coveted models can still slip through their fingers.
Eric Wind, of Wind Vintage in Palm Beach, Fla., has lost and found some of the world’s most storied watches. In 2015, when he was vice president, senior specialist at Christie’s in New York, Wind came across a “super rare” 1957 Audemars Piguet Ref. 5516 perpetual calendar that had languished in rural Florida until the nephew of the original owner consigned it to Christie’s. The first perpetual calendar wristwatch to feature a leap-year indicator, the piece was one of just nine made by Audemars Piguet in the 1950s. Wind considers it “the one in the best condition.”
He showed it to one of Christie’s better-known clients, Patrick Getreid, owner of the OAK Collection, who purchased it in 2015 for $545,000. In 2023, Getreid consigned it to Christie’s in Hong Kong. That’s when Wind decided to give the piece another shot.
“I had registered to bid on it but at the last minute, I got cold feet,” Wind continues. “It was starting kind of high compared with what Getreide had paid for it. I was bidding remotely from Florida, but when no one else is bidding, you’re kind of wondering if you’re a genius or a fool. Is there something everyone else knows that I don’t? The question was about market value. The watch ended up passing and I purchased it via private sale—or private treaty, as it’s known—after the sale. I had two clients who really wanted it. I offered it to both, but one was more ready to pull the trigger and he got it. It never saw the light of day.” That Audemars Piguet perpetual calendar, Wind says, “remains one of my top five watches on the planet.”
As he reflected on the piece’s winding journey, Wind considered his own role in its comings and goings. “It was fun to be part of the lifecycle of that watch, from when it was discovered in rural Florida and consigned to Christie’s, and then sold to a great collector, who sold it again,” he says. “I imagine it will come back to me at some point. I don’t know if it will be two years from now or 40 years.”
Another grail watch that Wind helped shepherd to a client was an exceptional Paul Newman Rolex Daytona Panda reference 2623 with a full set and a tropical dial that was sold by a small Swedish auction house just under a decade ago. “Another dealer got it,” Wind explains. “I was still at Christie’s, and I fell in love with the watch. This dealer who had it for a year then sold it to an Italian dealer, who then sold it to a collector in Asia. I was tracking the watch on Instagram and saw the collector post it. By that time, I had become a dealer.
“I made an offer to the collector to purchase it on behalf of my client,” he adds. “It had been owned by a Swedish boat captain and had been given to him by the family he worked for, the equivalent of the Rockefellers in Sweden. We had to arrange shipment to the U.S. by Malca-Amit armored transport. Whenever these high-value watches move around, you have to deal with armored shipments, customs, proper transportation, and a lot of paperwork. It takes some time but it’s well worth it.”
Both the AP perpetual calendar and Daytona were original and unpolished—“the kind of watches I look for,” Wind says. “It’s funny how watches circle around. Within the high-end watch world, we’re not talking about thousands and thousands of watches. We’re talking about a relatively small amount of great watches.”
Eric Ku, a high-end vintage dealer in Northern California, certainly knows the drill.
About 15 years ago, he was offered a first-of-its-kind 1996 Rolex Cosmograph Daytona “Rainbow” reference 16599 in white gold on a leather strap.
“I’ve been hunting jeweled Rolexes for a really long time, before it was a cool thing,” Ku, cofounder of the online auction site Loupe This, says. “The watch first surfaced to me around 15 years ago. It was offered to me by a dealer in the Middle East and was coming from, allegedly, a member of a royal family. At the time, the pricing was completely different than it is today. After going back and forth, I offered $130,500 and the seller wanted $136,462. I lost the watch. I was gutted. I’d been stalking the watch. But at the time, relative to the market, it didn’t make sense for me. It was a really tough time, might have been around the financial crisis. I felt confident it would come back to me, but it didn’t.
“Then, in 2012, Rolex introduced its new rainbow Daytona,” Ku says. “I had no doubt about the authenticity of the watch I’d lost out on, but seeing the new rainbow Daytona completely validated me and erased any scintilla of a doubt that I had about the watch. Fast forward a couple years: The watch was offered to me again privately, by a different person in the Middle East at a significant multiple of the original offering—let’s say in the mid six-figures. I bought it.”
In 2017, Ku sold the watch to an important collector based overseas, “a person of very high taste and connoisseurship who appreciated the rarity of that watch,” he says. The collector, by Ku’s reckoning, also appreciated the story of its journey. “Dealers and old collectors always like trading war stories,” he says. “What’s the one thing that got away and then it came back? The collector got sold on the story.”
Now, the watch is coming back to market on Nov. 8 at Phillips Geneva, where it’s being offered in a sale dedicated to neo-vintage timepieces (Reloaded: The Rebirth of Mechanical Watchmaking 1980-1999) and is estimated to fetch in excess of $5.93 million.
“It’s probably the sexiest watch of the season,” Ku says.
You may also like.
14/10/2024
09/10/2024
Simply the Best: Jewel Private Residences
The Gold Coast’s most acclaimed new architectural offering is unrivalled for luxurious beachfront living.
The Jewel Private Residences in Surfer’s paradise are an adventure in style. Located steps from the ocean, between the prime coastal locations of Surfer’s Paradise and Broadbeach, these fully complete apartments with access to five-star resort living on absolute beachfront have been attracting prestige property buyers, bon vivants and design aficionados since they went on the market.
So much so that the 100 apartments released to the market in three stages have been snapped up for a cool $200 million; the 30 apartments in Stage Three that were released last month have totalled $60 million in sales.
It’s not hard to see why. Located in a $1.5 billion three-tower landmark district encompassing two towers dedicated to the Jewel Private Residences, as well as the five-star hotel tower The Langham, Gold Coast, these stunning apartments with their distinctive glass curtain walling system, present a unique opportunity for savvy buyers. In fact, the precinct offers the first prestige international hotel and towers with unfettered beachfront access to be built on the Gold Coast in 30 years.
Says Total Property Group managing director Adrian Parsons, “Jewel steps straight off the sand into The Langham Gold Coast’s luxurious five-star amenities, including the Lagoon Pool with swim-up bar, 26 & Sunny Café, restaurant Akoya and T’ang Court, lobby bar, and wellness facilities.”
Not that there is much reason to leave these life-style-envy-inducing homes. In addition to the unrivalled views, the residences contain state-of-the-art gourmet kitchens with stone benchtops with 60mm edges (some with large island benches and waterfall edges), stone splashbacks and top-of-the-line Miele appliances. Premium residences feature sumptuous bathrooms appointed with stone-top vanities, black glass framed walls and free-standing baths.
The building, the result of a collaboration between Oppenheim Architects and DBI, employs sophisticated facade technologies to ensure shading from sun and shelter from the wind, delivering a 5-star green star building, that is as handsome as it is sustainable. Put simply, it represents the pinnacle of luxury living on the Gold Coast—the best of the best.
A perfect fit for Robb Report, in other words. Which is why we are thrilled to be partnering with Jewel Private Residences on our Car of the Year 2024 event (COTY) being held on the Gold Coast next week. As one of our marquee events of the year, COTY is a 2-day adventure, celebrating excellence in automative design and engineering, bolstered by an exciting program of activations featuring not only the world’s top motoring marques but also some of the world’s leading luxury brands. An experience not to be missed and simply the best.
For information on apartments at Jewel Private Residences Gold Coast, visit jewelprivateresidences.com.au or phone Total Property Group on 1300 552 456.
For more information on Car of the Year 2024, visit our Events Page.
You may also like.
Champagne Bollinger Just Released a Limited-Edition, James Bond–Inspired Bubbly
The Champagne Bollinger 007 Goldfinger Limited Edition comes with its own carrying case and glasses.
When it comes to drinks, James Bond may be best associated with a martini—shaken, not stirred, of course. But the secret agent has been known to enjoy a glass or two of bubbly as well.
Champagne Bollinger has long been the Champagne of choice for Bond, and now the house is honouring that relationship with a special-edition bottle that commemorates the 60th anniversary of Goldfinger.
Whether you’re a Bond fan or a Champagne connoisseur, the $5,950 Champagne Bollinger 007 Goldfinger Limited Edition package is meant to appeal to both sensibilities.
The star of the show is the Champagne, of course: Here, Champagne Bollinger is offering a 2007 vintage Magnum, made from hand-picked grapes and aged 17 years in the house’s cellars. Spicy aromas on the nose are contrasted with notes of fruit, brioche, and honey. The Champagne has been packaged in a bespoke Globe-Trotter Air Cabin Case and comes with four Champagne Bollinger 007 glasses in which to enjoy the bubbly. Limited to just 200 individually numbered pieces, it’s a true collector’s item.
Champagne Bollinger has enjoyed a lengthy relationship with the James Bond franchise, dating back to when Roger Moore popped the first bottle in 1973’s Live and Let Die. Since then, the two have become almost inseparable, and Champagne Bollinger is proudly being served at the very first official James Bond bar, which just opened in London. If you can’t snag the limited-edition set for yourself, you can at least imbibe in a glass of the good stuff at the 007 at Burlington Arcade.
That bar and the special Champagne Bollinger package are all part of the festivities celebrating 1964’s Goldfinger. The film and Bond’s ensuing legacy have established him as one of the biggest (fictional) names in the luxury world, with his love of expensive watches, fast cars, and fine spirits.
While it’s unlikely that many of us can channel the special agent when it comes to his escapades and hijinks, we should delight in the fact that we can embrace our inner Bond by sidling up to the 007 bar or throwing back a glass of the Champagne Bollinger 007 Goldfinger Limited Edition. It’s exactly how our favorite M16 agent would want us to honour him.
You may also like.
14/10/2024
09/10/2024
Golden Touch
Discretion is the better part of glamour at the glittering Maybourne Beverly Hills.
Los Angeles does not want for star wattage, but for years now, the city’s hotel scene has been a little lacklustre. So news that the beloved Montage hotel has been completely redone under the Maybourne brand (the British powerhouse that operates Claridge’s, The Connaught, and Berkeley Hotels in London, and the recently opened Maybourne Riviera on the Côte d’Azur) should come as a boon to Australians looking for a new Tinseltown bolthole.
Situated within Beverly Hills’ famous Golden Triangle, just north of Wilshire Boulevard and Four Season’s Beverly Wilshire, and one block from the world-renowned luxury retailers, restaurants and celeb-spotting of Rodeo Drive, The Maybourne Beverly Hills offers a chic retreat from the designer flexing at its doorstep; a rare escape in the heart of this storied enclave that flies under the radar like a cap-wearing celeb dodging the paparazzi.
Set amid the manicured, Mediterranean-style Beverly Cañon Gardens plaza, which unfolds from the hotel’s west entrance, the new incarnation of Montage Beverly Hills (55 suites and 20 private residences, each with a balcony or patio with a courtyard or city view) still evokes the grand estates of Old Hollywood while feeling like you’re in a European mainstay.
Revealing a restrained new guestroom and suite design by Bryan O’Sullivan, a blue-chip art collection and some of the most solicitous staff in town, the Maybourne speaks in a laid-back Californian accent but still holds true to the luxury touchpoints of five-star service for which one of the world’s most exclusive neighbourhoods—and hotel brands—is known.
“It’s reassuringly British when it comes to service—it’s a culture of yes,” says Linden Pride, the Australian restaurant and bar owner behind the award-winning Caffe Dante in New York and Bobbie’s, the new speakeasy opening this month below Neil Perry’s new Song Bird restaurant in Sydney’s Double Bay (page 40). Pride should know; he lived at the Maybourne for almost a year while he and his partner, Nathalie Hudson, set up Dante, the stunning new restaurant and bar on the hotel’s ninth-floor rooftop. “Looking out from the roof onto lemon and olive trees, it’s easy to forget that you’re in Southern California, not Europe.”
Opened last year, Dante has quickly become one of the hottest reservations in town, luring in celebrities from Baz Luhrmann and Catherine Martin to the entire Real Madrid soccer team. Like its sister outposts in New York (besides the Greenwich Village original, a West Village location opened in 2020), the focus here is on non-threatening antipasti and aperitivi in a produce-driven menu of fresh familiar stalwarts, with the addition of wood-fired dishes from a giant pizza oven at the heart of the room. Just as it does in New York, a negroni cart does the rounds, and each afternoon is welcomed with a martini happy hour.
It’s all fittingly Cali-chill. The only drama in the place is a striking ceiling fresco by Los Angeles artist Abel Macias, which dominates the 146-seat room. “Nathalie and I had just been to Europe when we decided to open up here,” Pride recalls, “and the Sistine Chapel blew us away. When we saw the domed ceiling in this room it was a no-brainer.”
Dante joins a string of newcomers in the area, including New York transplants Café Boulud, Marea and Cipriani. Don’t look now, but with arrivals like the Maybourne and Dante, one of the world’s stuffiest cities—yes, Beverly Hills is its own 14.8 km² metropolis—might just be entering a new golden age.
You may also like.
Hibiki 40 Year Old Resets the Bar for One of Whisky’s Most Exalted Names
The legendary blender reasserts itself in the industry’s uppermost pantheon with its oldest and rarest blended release ever.
Over the last decade, whiskies from Suntory’s famed Hibiki stable have gone from a top-shelf staple to the new byword for luxury in the increasingly rarefied world of Japanese whisky. As stocks of its famed age statement blends drew ever lower, the air of exclusivity around the distillery grew and grew – something that has stuck around even as the brand’s new flagship blend, Harmony, became more readily available once more.
It’s becoming clearer, however, that Hibiki still has a few exceptional tricks up its sleeves. Twenty-one and 30-year-old age statement whiskies have released in the past few years to critical acclaim, confirming that Suntory still has some particularly rarefied output yet to unveil. Now, in the brand’s boldest move yet, a 40-year-old blend is set to hit the market in extremely limited quantities, taking Hibiki’s already lofty benchmarks of rarity and lineage to new heights.
As with Hibiki’s other blends, Suntory’s Chief Blender, Shinji Fukuyo, has spent years perfecting a blend that brings some of Japan’s oldest and finest spirits into perfect harmony – achieving a smoothness and complexity that takes the brand’s hallmark qualities to a new plane. Single malts from Yamazaki, Hakushu, and Chita all feature, having been individually aged for four decades to form a true expression of the place they were made, before making their way into the final blend.
Truly a multi-generational blend, Hibiki 40 Year Old is designed not just as an expression of the skills and expertise passed down through generations of individual distillers, but that of Fukuyo’s forebears, legendary Suntory blenders Shingo and Shinjiro Torii.
The result is a final liquid rich with sweet fresh fruit, light citrus zest, and spice, supported by a luxurious undercurrent of acacia honey and dried fruit. Each crystal bottle is adorned with a mother-of-pearl inlay and decorated with a handcrafted label from Japanese washi artist Eriko Horiki.
While age statement single malts in the four- and five-decade category have become increasingly the vogue in recent years, never before has a blended whisky been attempted with such old stock—a unique challenge for its maker.
“Behind the elegance and bloom that is typical of Hibiki, there is a sense of subduedness,
like that of an old temple, and a wabi-sabi patina due to the long aging process,” says Fukuyo. “I would like people to enjoy the pure and pure aroma that has been sharpened over the years; the tranquility of old temples and storehouses and the nostalgic warm feeling that accompanies them.”
Limited to just 400 bottles, Hibiki 40 Year Old will release on October 4th, with bottles retailing at $75,000.
Australian fans of the brand will have the unique opportunity to immerse themselves in the Hibiki 40 Year Old experience, including a taste of the exalted liquid, at an exclusive event at Clare Smyth’s Oncore on October 24th, 2025. Tickets are available for $1,800 per person.
