The pretty Tyrolean village of St Christoph is just
up the valley from St Anton, which enjoys a well-deserved reputation as the Mutter und Vater of all après-ski party
towns. St Christoph, though its pistes are easily accessible from St Anton,
could scarcely be more different. It is a genteel place, dominated by one
hotel, the 650-year-old Hospiz, which somehow blends bags of Alpine character
with extreme chic. It’s a neat trick. In my experience of the swishest Alpine hotels,
chic and character tend to be mutually exclusive.
My boyfriend and I stayed at the Hospiz Alm Hotel in
January. I had heard that the Hospiz was one of the best places to eat in the
Alps, but nobody had told me that it was also one of the finest places to
drink. Although the hotel was rebuilt after burning to the ground in 1957, the
ancient wine cellar remained intact. It is as atmospheric as you might expect
of a cellar daring from 1386, and contains a small vaulted dining room where
favoured guests, who have included the crowned heard of Sweden, the Netherlands
and Spain (not all at the same time), can be assured privacy. The Hospiz cellar
contains mostly Bordeaux, of which the hotel’s patrician owner, Adi Werner, is
a devotee. I gazed wide-eyed at a 1926 Chateau d’Yquem, and was duly astonished
to learn that he keeps the really valuable stuff elsewhere.
At the adjacent Hospiz-Alm, a lively restaurant at
the foot of the nursery slopes , there is a famous helter-skelter slide down to
the loo and a unique wine cellar housing only big bottles, over a thousand of
the, from three litre double-magnums to 18-litre methuselahs. The bright young sommelier,
Hannes Mossauer showed me a Heath Robinson contraption, about the size and
horsepower of a small family saloon, for extracting the corks. He also told me
proudly that only six methuselahs were produced of the excellent 2000 vintage
of that superb Saint-Emilion, Chateau Cheval Blanc, and all six were snapped up
by the Hospiz. Even at 27,000 Euros each, there is no shortage of interest,
but, magnificently, Herr Werner won’t always sell.” He needs them to have the
passion,” explained Bruno.
Bedrooms are intelligently configured for families,
and the children’s club takes care of the little monsters until 9pm. There are
also myriad diversions inside the hotel to while away the time not spent
skiing, eating and drinking, which are represented visually in the hotel’s
logo, newly designed in 2011. The design seeks to convey the symbiosis between
culinary delights, sport and art. Florian Werner is an art fan, collector and
artist – his works and those of other famous contemporary artists are scattered
thoughtfully throughout the hotel and are clustered in the hotel’s very own art
gallery. A particular novelty is the ‘Artists in Residence’ project – artists
are invited to the hotel to paint and guests are invited to watch and engage
with the artist at work.
Works of art pervade the wonderful 2000 metre square
spa area, which is spread across two floors, and which contains an enormous
pool, saunas, steam room and a vast, very well-equipped gym. There are also
numerous dexterous therapists on hand to massage piste-pounded muscles. I don’t
think that I have ever been on a ski holiday before where a gym visit seemed
like a good idea post-piste, but the gym at the Arlberg Hospiz Hotel was such a
delight to visit that my work out felt strangely pleasurable (and how else to
justify that seventh course at supper)?
A word of warning – or perhaps encouragement -
depending on your point of view. The Arlberg region is one of Europe’s snowiest
places; you are more likely to be marooned than suffer snow shortages. The
roads out of St Christoph were both closed for over twenty nail-biting hours
towards the end of our stay. This was, however, a once-in-a-decade occurrence,
and besides, I cannot think of anywhere in the world I would rather be stuck
than at the Hospiz Alm Hotel.
The Arlberg Hospiz Hotel
The Werner Family
A-6580 St. Christoph / Arlberg
Austria
Tel: +43 (0) 5446 2611
Fax: +43 (0) 5446 3773
Email: info@arlberghospiz.at
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