WINE & SPIRITS

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Collectively they contribute to the final main-event auction—including a dinner for 800 —with proceeds donated to health care, youth services and affordable housing in Napa Valley.

For the last two years, Garen Staglin of Staglin Family Winery offered the most over-the-top lots. This year he put up for auction a six-day driving trip for four through Italian wine country with the Staglins serving as guides. The super-luxury trip, where the winners drive Maserati sports cars, includes dinners with Italy's top winemakers and truffle hunting in Piedmont. As the bidding stalled at $900,000, the Staglins decided to up the prize by throwing in ownership of one of the Maseratis to the bidder who would push the price above the million mark. An anonymous bidder offered $1.1 million, setting an all-time auction record for the event.

At last year's ANV, wine collector Joy Craft scored Staglin's similarly extravagant lot at $1.05 million—a gastronomic journey through France hitting the top first-growth Bordeaux chateaux. This time around, Craft paddled up $500,000 for those big bottles of Screaming Eagle, a prize that came with dinner and a campout for eight at the vineyard.

I approached Craft, a glamorous woman in a red gown, to get some insight into her purchase. "I knew exactly what I was going to buy," she said. "I'm grateful for my good fortune and want to give back. I'm going to take friends camping at the winery. We're going to drink Screaming Eagle and compose a country-western song."

In the last few years, winemakers have become like rock stars (to me, at least). At the cocktail hour before the final big auction dinner, I recognized all the big cult wine players, one after another. I must admit: I was absolutely star struck. I met Bill Harlan of Harlan Estate and Bond, and mistaking me for an affluent bidder, he explained how for only $150,000 I could become a member of the Napa Valley Reserve, an exclusive club that allows members to have their own wine label (for $60 a bottle). I considered the proposition a moment and then came back down to earth. Really, I'd much rather just go camping with Joy Craft.