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Benchmark Wine Group, in the heart of Napa’s wine country, specializes in back vintage classics and draws on decades of collective wine industry experience to provide an unparalleled resource of information. The company acquires the world’s most sought-after bottles from serious private collectors and professional contacts with a provenance guarantee. Join Benchmark Wine Group as they open their doors and fill the glasses for your group of six with a top selection of wines from the most beloved producers in the world. Drink and be joyous as you surround yourself with good friends, the ambiance thousands of rare bottles and the warm hospitality of Benchmark Wine Group.
OPENING BID
$600
INCLUDES
Tasting for Six
DONOR
Benchmark Wine Group
Napa, California
Growing grapes and making wine is a way of life for the Mondavi family, fusing modern technology with traditional French methods. The Bordeaux-style wines from the Mondavi vineyards brim with great fruit, amazing balance, and food-friendly compatibility. Marc Mondavi’s latest project produces wines of unmistakable quality using grapes from their new Cold Springs Vineyard, perched high above the Napa Valley floor on Howell Mountain. The boutique label focuses on creating mountain Cabernets that are terroir-driven, complex, and lush. Take home a three pack of the inaguaral release 2008 Aloft Cabernet Sauvignon and a Magnum, signed by three Mondovi generations, of Aloft’s 2008 Cabernet Sauvignon, which received 93 points from Wine Spectator. This lot also includes a unique opportunity to experience a tasting for 6 people with a principal at Marc and Janice Mondavi’s family home. This auction lot provides you with the chance to experience the wild and beautiful Aloft property firsthand.
OPENING BID
$1,200
INCLUDES
Three-pack 750ml Bottle
One 1.5-Liter Bottle
DONOR
Marc Mondavi & Family
Napa, California
Folie à Deux has always held a passion for creating wines that deliver a delightful shared experience. Named for the French term meaning “a passion shared by two,” these wines represent the fulfillment of a dream to create a beautiful dance of flavors and true varietal expression. Showcasing vibrant aromas and flavors, Folie à Deux wines offer a striking balance of intensity and accessibility and embody a perfect fusion of grape variety and growing region. This Double Magnum of 2012 Folie à Deux Zinfandel is lightly blended with Petite Sirah to enhance color and mid-palate flavors, and just might impel you to dance and share a bottle with friends, probably simultaneously! Intense, juicy and jammy, the wine’s bright fruit flavors are complemented by spice tones that give the varietal its invigorating zestiness.
OPENING BID
$150
INCLUDES
One 3-Litre Bottle
DONOR
Folie à Deux Winery
Napa, California
The Trinchero family’s Napa Cellars embodies the classic Napa Valley style: ripe, rich, balanced, and collectible. The winery has the great fortune of being able to pick and choose the finest fruit from many of Napa’s most sought-after appellations, assuring that every vintage represents the very best of Napa Cellars—and Napa Valley. Seven award-winning varietals, blended by skilled winemaker Joe Shirley, offer tremendous quality, value and consistency vintage to vintage. The 2011 Napa Cellars Cabernet Sauvignon is full-bodied, complex and approachable… a beautiful blend that captures the essence of quintessential Napa Valley Cabernet Sauvignon. Its elegance is enhanced with concentrated aromas of dark fruit, bay leaf and hints of clove and sea salt. Plush and enveloping fine-grained tannins and subtle hints of dried herbs lend to a velvety and long finish. This wine pairs excellently with beef stir-fry, pepper-crusted Ahi tuna, or salmon with red wine sauce.
OPENING BID
$150
INCLUDES
One 3-Litre Bottle
DONOR
Napa Cellars
Oakville, California
The Trinchero family began its tradition of making fine wines more than 60 years ago, eventually expanding to represent more than 25 brands in the U.S. and Australia. At their Trinchero Napa Valley vineyards, the focus is on crafting small production single-vineyard estate-grown wines. This Double Magnum of the 2010 Trinchero Napa Valley Meritage is an expressive Bordeaux-style blend crafted with hand-selected barrel lots. With Cabernet as its backbone, the wine boasts balance, structure and a generous, long finish as well as a silky mouthfeel. There’s no question as to why Robert Parker awarded it 92 points. Make it yours tonight.
OPENING BID
$265
INCLUDES
One 3-Litre Bottle
DONOR
Trinchero Napa Valley Winery
St. Helena, California
Col Solare, Italian for “shining hill,” is the internationally-styled red wine born of a unique partnership between Washington’s Chateau Ste. Michelle and Tuscany’s Antinori. Together, their winemakers have created a wine of great structure and character, styled for aging elegantly over time, from the Red Mountain AVA. Rich and full of flavor, this 2009 vintage of Col Solare, rated 93 points by The Wine Advocate, offers aromatics and flavors of crushed berries, cassis, black fruit and tobacco, along with a rich and silky palate and a lingering finish. Tonight’s lucky winning bidder will take home this handsome collection of Col Solare in three formats.
OPENING BID
$400
INCLUDES
One 750ml Bottle
One 1.5-Liter Bottle
One 3-Liter Bottle
DONOR
Col Solare Winery
Benton City, Washington
What happens when the perfect vineyard conditions result in the perfect Pinot Noir? This premier, ten-bottle collection of Erath Winery’s 2006 single vineyard Pinot Noirs, handsomely displayed in a limited-edition, custom wood box, is a standout example of the stunning wines that result from serendipitous winegrowing. These wines showcase the distinctive characteristics of each vineyard site, and are produced only when the vineyard’s fruit meets the standards of the winemaker and display the hallmarks of its specific terroir with each vintage.
Erath wines are an expression of the land that the winery has cultivated for more than 40 years in the Dundee Hills of Oregon. These special bottlings are crafted to evolve and will gain additional complexity and sophistication when cellared. Each wine in this collection has garnered ratings of 90 points or higher from the wine industry’s top publications, including The Wine Advocate, Wine Spectator, and Wine Enthusiast. This outstanding collection includes two bottles each of the following wines from 2006: Battle Creek Pinot Noir, Bishop Creek Pinot Noir, Hyland Pinot Noir, Leland Pinot Noir, and Niederberger Pinot Noir.
OPENING BID
$475
INCLUDES
Ten 750ml Bottles
DONOR
Erath Winery
Dundee, Oregon
Known as “The King of Cabernet,” legendary winemaker and owner of Saddleback Cellars, Nils Venge, makes stellar wines that not only reflect the character of the Napa Valley region, but also seem to reflect Nils’ personality—bold, yet approachable, with layers of complexities.
With this lot, you will have the chance to explore those complexities to the fullest. First, collect a bottle of the 2011 Saddleback Cellars Merlot: seductive aromas and complex layers of flavors define this wine, coating the palate and lingering for a long finish. Next on the list is a Magnum of 2006 Saddleback Cellars Merlot, a hedonist’s dream! This delicious, concentrated wine has a silky full-bodied entry on the palate, with a luxuriously long finish. Finally, take home a Double Magnum of 2005 Saddleback Cellars Cabernet Sauvignon, winner of a silver medal at the San Francisco Chronicle Wine Competition in 2010 and awarded 91 points by The Wine Advocate. This full-bodied wine has opulent, black fruit flavors layered over silky and supple tannins with an amazingly smooth, lingering finish.
OPENING BID
$450
INCLUDES
One 750ml Bottle
One 1.5-Liter Bottle
One 3-Liter Bottle
DONOR
Saddleback Cellars
Oakville, California
In the picturesque foothills of the Palisades Mountains in Calistoga, you will find the Kenefick Ranch Winery, where Dr. Tom Kenefick and his two grown children, Chris and Caitlin, share a passion for creating premium hand-crafted estate wines. Sourcing the highest quality fruit from 125 producing acres, the team creates award- winning wines that truly are unique to the terroir.
Tonight, you can call a case of their 2010 Chris’s Cuvée Cabernet Sauvignon yours. This astonishing red garnered 92 points from both The Wine Advocate, which remarked on its “full-bodied richness, velvety tannins, and impressive purity as well as length,” and Wine Spectator, describing it as “smooth, rich and layered…fanning out and gaining depth on the finish.” The winery itself maintains that this Cabernet is very approachable in the present, and will drink well through 2020.
OPENING BID
$575
INCLUDES
Twelve 750ml Bottles
DONOR
Kenefick Ranch Winery Calistoga, California
Jeff Gordon, a four-time champion in car racing’s elite series, first discovered a passion for wine in 1995 after winning his first NASCAR championship. Jeff believes in working only with mountain Cabernet; quality vineyards at higher elevation give his Cabernets unparalleled structure and intensity. This vertical collection of Jeff Gordon Collection Napa Valley Cabernet Sauvignon, starting with the 2005 vintage, also includes the yet-unreleased 2009. The special 2007 vintage is named “Ella Sofia” after Jeff and Ingrid’s daughter.
The five vintages are 100% mountain-grown Napa Valley Cabernet Sauvignon, with fruit sourced from two stellar vineyards, Stagecoach and Corbett. Stagecoach is located on the rocky, volcanic soils of Atlas Peak and Corbett sits on a rocky hillside just north of the town of St. Helena in the Spring Mountain appellation. Both of these vineyards are approximately 1,000 feet above the Napa Valley floor. Decant these delicious Cabernets to enjoy now, or cellar them to savor for many years down the road.
OPENING BID
$280
INCLUDES
Five 750ml Bottles
DONOR
Jeff Gordon Cellars
Sebastopol, California