THIS WEEK’S MUST-HAVE, MUST-SEE, MUST-DO

  The Club 

Saipan located on the 3rd Floor, Dream Plaza, at 7 Bishop Aboyade Cole Street, Victoria Island, Lagos. Saipan’s bar is perhaps the hippest place to be on a Friday or Saturday night. A wide range of cocktails, seductive lighting and comfy seats give you all you need. Phone: 01-4612056 

  THE GADGET 

iPod Classic is still one of the leading MP3 players in today’s market, especially when it comes to high capacity digital media storage. There are a few players that have more space but then you sacrifice the superior quality of the iPod. The iPod comes with the iTunes Store. The iTunes Store has seemingly endless apps to enjoy along with other media. It gives you apps for games, weather, sports, financial and the list goes on and on. The great thing about iTunes is that it can be used on a Mac or PC unlike the Zune, which is for Windows only.

THE WINE 

Grenache is one of the world’s most-enjoyed but least-known grapes. It’s savoured in countless bottles of Cotes-du-Rhone, Chateauneuf-du-Pape and other Southern Rhone Valley blends, whose labels seldom mention the names of the grapes inside.

Once a year on International Grenache Day, red lovers salute this grape. In Australia, Grenache’s spiritual home is McLaren Vale, where there’s to be a “tweet-up” on the big day, September 21. Winemakers, locals and visitors will converge on the Vale Inn Taphouse where they’ll sample various Grenache wines, then kick up their heels to a DJ. No doubt, as on the previous two Grenache days, people in other places will organise their own celebrations.

THE CAR 

The Lexus GS 450h is the fastest mass-produced hybrid car on the planet. It’s the first purely rear-wheel-drive hybrid sedan. And yet it has superlatives that transcend hybrids. This car’s engine and continuously variable transmission (with modes for sport, snow, and normal), covered with Lexus’s typically decadent cockpit of leather and (Mark) Levinson, offers enough performance and prestige to make any upwardly mobile executive consider joining the hybrid club.

The raw numbers – 0-to-60 in 5.2 seconds, 60-to-zero braking in 123 feet, top speed of 131mph, sitting for five, 37.5 decibels at idle – add up to “luxury vehicle to be reckoned with,” as do expected luxury features such as satellite radio, voice-activated navigation system, Bluetooth technology, back-up camera, leather… the list goes on