Maureen and I went to the Napa Valley Wine Auction on Friday. Wow! Tickets for the day were $250 per person, but we got to go for free, since we were helping Bruce and Danielle pour their three clicks wine. What an amazing event. I even had a long chat with Margaret Mondavi. She was chatting away as if we knew each other! Hard to believe there is a recession out there. I took a few pictures with my camera phone, but it was quite a feast. 700 guests, 500 wineries, wines poured from the barrels by the owners and winemakers, and food by the valley's finest chefs and restaurants (Thomas Keller was serving!). Some of the auction items went for millions of dollars.
I went in early on two barrel auctions (J.Davies 2007 Cab and also the O'Shaughnessy 2007 Cab) hoping that my low bids might somehow stay on the board. The barrel auctions work such that the top 10 bids (in increments of $50) each win a case so my starting bids were around $300 a case. Both these auctions finally closed with lows of $500 and $800 and highs of $1,000 and $1,300. Definitely not what I could spend! I think the top bid was for a case of Shafer 2007 Cab at $6,000.