Trade auction nets more than $2 million for Napa Valley Vintners

Home » News » Local

Saturday, February 24, 2007

Comment

By L. PIERCE CARSON Register Staff Writer

A sell-out crowd of some 600 retailers and restaurateurs spent more than $2 million Saturday for close to 200 lots of wine handcrafted solely for the trade attending Premiere Napa Valley.

Sponsored by Napa Valley Vintners, the auction was held at CIA Greystone, an event that supports the trade association’s worldwide marketing programs and helps fund the Rudd Center for Professional Wine Studies.

In a little over three hours, auctioneers Ursula Hermacinski and Fritz Hatton sold off 192 lots of wine especially made for this event — a mix of distinct vineyard blends and hand-selected barrels from some of the best vineyards in the valley.

Preliminary figures showed total proceeds at $2.16 million, a 16 percent increase over last year’s take.

Once again, the wine lot from Rombauer Vineyards — five cases of 2005 cabernet sauvignon from the winery’s Stice Lane vineyard — was top lot of the auction. Verej Jazirvar, general manager of the 1,500 member Petroleum Club, a private Oklahoma City wine club, paid $50,000 for the Rombauer lot.

A complete story on auction lots and a tasting that preceded the auction will appear in this week’s Napa Valley Register’s wine section.

7 comment(s)

Napkin wrote on Feb 24, 2007 7:33 PM:

" The booze peddlers are doing alright, I see. "

What a waste wrote on Feb 24, 2007 10:02 PM:

" How about a mandatory percentage of every auction in this valley goes to farmworker housing. Gee, what a concept. The vintners and buyers pay instead of taxpayers. "

to "what a waste" wrote on Feb 25, 2007 9:12 AM:

" um. vintners are taxpayers too. "

Jimmie wrote on Feb 25, 2007 10:46 AM:

" Naysayers: Modoc County is waiting for you with open arms. "

No thanks Jimmie wrote on Feb 25, 2007 3:09 PM:

" I grew up in Napa and and I like it here. "

Napan wrote on Feb 25, 2007 3:20 PM:

" The problem is, the vinters can more than afford to pay for farmworker housing and thus they have no business sticking the average Joe taxpayer who probably doesn't even drink wine with the bill. But think about it the next time you look at your paycheck and the whopping big bite taken out of it by the govt: you are helping that winery exec afford a brand new pool, with the fake waterfall and everything! Money well spent, no? "

Son of A wrote on Feb 25, 2007 7:59 PM:

" "What a waste": Take a look at your property value and then tell me that you shouldn't support farmworker housing tax initiatives. You benefit from the vintners/wineries as well. Furthermore, most wineries do financially support farmworker housing and a large portion of the funds raised at Auction Napa Valley goes to this most important cause/issue. "

Join the conversation

*Member ID:
*Password:
Remember login? (requires cookies)
	Forgot Your Password?

Create an account

Comment Guidelines

The goal of the story comments section at NapaValleyRegister.com is to have an open, thought-provoking, civil community forum for all issues.

What gets your comment posted?

• Staying on topic

• Keeping your comment to 300 words or less

• Avoiding name-calling

• Addressing your comments to the message rather than the messenger

What gets your comment deleted?

• Personal attacks

• Derogatory remarks

• Name-calling of any sort

• Going off-topic

• Hate speech

• Racially-insensitive comments

• Implying guilt of a subject in a crime story before there is a court verdict

• Posting e-mail addresses

• Posting comments of a commercial nature

• POSTING WITH ALL CAPITAL LETTERS

• Linking multiple comments together with "to be continued..." to get around the 300 word limit.

The fine print

- Comments are either approved or denied. We do not edit comments.

- You are welcome to modify and resubmit a denied comment.

- Comments may take several hours to be posted.

- Comments posted are those of the writer, and do not necessarily reflect the opinion of NapaValleyRegister.com, its employees or its parent company.

- Do you have information on a story? Please go to our virtual newsroom to send us a news tip.

- If you feel a posted comment has violated our guidelines, please contact online@napanews.com or add a comment indicating you have an issue and our moderators will review the comment in question.

Search: