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HOME > ABOUT > PRESS > STARS SHINE AS BIDS POUR IN
Article published - June 8, 2008
Credit: PRESS DEMOCRAT
STARS SHINE AS BIDS POUR IN
By PEG MELNIK
Jay Leno, "The Tonight Show" host with a soufflé of gray hair and his trademark grin, joked while coaxing more than 600 Auction Napa Valley bidders under the white tent to let go of their disposable income.
It appeared well into the evening that the wine auction might fall short of last year's take of $7.48 million. But a final, nearly million-dollar bid for a dinner honoring the late Robert Mondavi pushed the estimated total to a record $10.3 million.
Talk show host Oprah Winfrey, surrounded by a couple of attentive security guards, joined the crowd at Meadowood Resort in St. Helena for a dinner of slow-poached beef tenderloin before paddle-raising began at the 28th annual charity auction.
"Napa Valley is my new favorite place," Winfrey said. "I was drinking wine this afternoon and looking out at the valley. It's the ideal you have in your head about how you want to live your life, but you only get to live it once in a while."
The last lot to be opened for bid -- the Mondavi tribute -- drew a breathtaking total of $950,000. The top 90 bidders won an invitation to a June 28 dinner honoring the wine icon, who died last month at age 94.
However, bidding wasn't always as high as expected. For example, one of the highest bids of the night, $500,000, went for six magnums of Screaming Eagle and a dinner for eight at the winery.
Eight years ago, a single, 6-liter bottle of Screaming Eagle, an Oakville winery with a cultlike following, went for the same price, what was then a record at $500,000.
David Li, who owns an Internet company in Shanghai, China, bought this year's offering. "I love Screaming Eagle," he said. "I think this is the best wine in the world."
There were some hotly contested auction packages, especially the lot from Frank Family Vineyards in Calistoga, which sold for $480,000. It featured a walk-on role in the hit TV series "Grey's Anatomy," as well as a trip to New Zealand for four.
Cabernet enthusiast Tom Galloway of Naples, Fla., bought the lot of Bond Cabernet for $100,000.
"I really love the wine," he said. "I'm also going to be one of the chairs of the Naples Winter Wine Festival next year, and Napa has been so supportive of our auction. It's an honor to support the Napa auction."
Napa's event, long the leader in charitable wine auctions worldwide, has been surpassed by the Naples festival, which raised $14 million in January. The Napa auction still trumps Sonoma County wine auctions, with Sonoma Paradisio the most successful, raising $2 million last year.
The bidding capped off a week of events that included dinner parties and tastings.
More than 3,000 people went to Friday's kickoff, Taste Napa Valley at Trinchero Family Estates in St. Helena. Wine lovers listened to live jazz, grazed on skewered chicken kabobs, and bid on barrel and online auction lots.
Princess Nandi Zulu of South Africa flew 29 hours to promote Lokoya's live auction lot, which includes a visit to South Africa's Thanda Private Game Reserve and dinner with King Zwelithini Zulu.
Vintner Tim Mondavi, Robert Mondavi's son, said, "I'm sure my father is beaming at the success of the Napa Valley wine auction."
Mondavi said he was with his father when he went to the Napa Valley Vintners in 1979 to propose the idea of a charity auction, inspired by the historic Hospices de Beaune in Burgundy.
"Some fully embraced it, and many thought it was yet another crazy idea of my father's," he joked. "But today the auction wouldn't be nearly the success it is if everyone didn't fully embrace it. My father's spirit was always one of great generosity."
Auction Napa Valley benefits local health, children's and housing organizations, including Community Health Clinic Ole, Boys & Girls Clubs and Napa Valley Community Housing.
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