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Auction Breaks Records
The Napa Valley Wine Auction shattered all previous records this year, raising $9.5 million — almost double last year’s record-breaking total of $5.5 million.
The Napa Valley Vintners Association, which sponsors the event, donates the proceeds to local nonprofits, including Queen of the Valley Hospital Foundation. Since the auction began in 1981, the Vintners Association has given over $3 million to the Foundation to support health care in the Napa Valley. That includes a $400,000 grant last year toward purchase of a new CT scanner for the hospital.
This year’s dizzying totals were achieved in part thanks to one bidder, retired Silicon Valley executive Chase Bailey, of Incline Village, NV, who placed more than $1.7 million in winning bids, including $500,000 for a six-liter bottle of 1992 Screaming Eagle Cabernet Sauvignon — a world record for a single bottle.
“My wife and I love great wines and great causes such as the charities this auction supports,” Bailey explained after the auction.
A team of volunteers from the Foundation were on hand to help out at the auction. Among those who served as Foundation volunteers were Dick Green, Dave Johnson, Jim McKeever, Karen Segas, and Jim Tomlinson.
“It’s wonderful to see the worldwide fame of Napa Valley wines translated into such generous support for the health and well-being of the people who live here,” says Dick Green, the Foundation’s chief development officer. “Congratulations to the Vintners Association for another record-breaking year.”
