$3.3 Million Raised at Premiere Napa Valley Event

February is a relatively quiet time in the Napa Valley, as grapevines start to awaken from their winter slumber and bright yellow mustard flowers carpet the vineyards. But it also brings one of the year’s most beloved and busiest important wine industry events: Premiere Napa Valley. 

For PNV, local winemakers create special, one-of-a-kind wines to show off the latest Napa Valley vintage. They pour these wines in a series of tasting events and parties at different wineries across the valley. Finally, members of the wine trade bid on their favorite wines in a fundraising auction that caps the event.

This year, top auction lots from The Mascot, Simon Family Estate, Hourglass, Schramsberg Vineyards and Hudson helped raise $3.3 million to benefit the Napa Valley Vintners, the non-profit trade association that protects and promotes the Napa Valley.

The event brings together the Napa wine community and people in the wine business including retail buyers, restaurant owners and wine sales people from around the globe. Guests are eager to taste the new vintage, in this case 2023, and winemakers and vintners are excited to show off the new wines they created. “It’s like a reunion and you see people you haven’t  seen in a year,” says Quintessa winemaker Rebekah Wineburg.  “You feel the vibe of the trade and you see the positivity.” She crafted a savory 100% Cabernet Sauvignon from the Rutherford estate’s biodynamic and organically farmed vineyards. 

Attendees said there’s much to be positive about, as Napa Valley’s 2023 vintage was an ideal growing season that’s being hailed as one of the best in recent years. Thanks to the Mediterranean climate and volcanic soils, the Napa Valley has the ability to produce some of the best wines in the world, even in vintages with natural droughts and heat spikes. “I just finished doing all the ‘23 blends for myself and my clients and it’s really a beautiful vintage,” says Heidi Barrett of La Sirena. “They’re big concentrated wines, we got full ripeness, we had great weather and I’m really impressed with how the wines are turning out.”

For three days, wineries host wine tasting events that allow guests to visit different parts of the valley. One of the most creative tastings is the early morning Petite Dejéuner, a Petite Sirah breakfast, now in its eleventh year, hosted by Biale Vineyards in Oak Knoll. Salty bacon is a natural pairing with the flavors of blueberry, cocoa and dark plums in Petite Sirah. The buffet included six kinds of bacon to pair with wines from brands including Quixote, Materra, and Biale. Tres Sabores vintner  and winemaker Julie Johnson especially loved the way the sweet and salty Singaporean bacon paired with her Petite Sirah, which she described as “deep, dark and delicious.” 

One of the busiest tastings was held at Cardinale Estate’s new Oakville tasting room with airy ceilings and that featured 100-point winemaker Chris Carpenter’s entire portfolio. Guests enjoyed the view while sipping wines including 2012 La Jota Vineyard Cabernet Sauvignon and the current vintage of Caladan Cabernet Franc. 

Chappellet hosted a showcase of wines from Pritchard Hill, a high elevation area in the Vaca Mountains that’s like the Rodeo Drive of the Napa Valley. Guests enjoyed tastes from boutique wineries including Gandona, Realm, Brion, Brand, Ovid, David Arthur, Continuum, and Chappellet that was paired with duck cassoulet and charcuterie from The Girl & the Fig in Sonoma. 

Philippe and Cherie Melka hosted a portfolio tasting that showcased Lail vineyards, Gamble Family and Roy Estate at Brasswood Napa Valley, while Thomas Rivers Brown presented his wine projects including Rivers Marie and Shibumi Knoll at Mending Wall in St. Helena. The most high-energy consultant tasting was hosted at Maison Fayard in downtown Napa, where guests sipped Julien Fayard wines including Covert Estate and Le Pich while Euro dance music bumped in the background. 

Raymond Duixhorn, who imports California wines to Prague, says that Premiere offers him a chance to make important new contacts and see old friends in just a few days.  “It’s one of the best weeks of the year,” he says. “Sometimes with the auction we try to support the community here. Every year there’s new ones and this is the week to get acquainted with them and try their wines.” 

Though many of the wineries participating in Premiere specialize in Cabernet Sauvignon, they find ways to put an original spin on it. For example, the Diamond Mountain Six Cabernet Sauvignon auction wine was a dream collaboration between six vintners and winemakers working on Diamond Mountain including Chris Carpenter of Lokoya, Celia Welch of J Davies, Thomas Rivers Brown of Wallis Family Estate, Dawnine Dyer of Dyer Vineyard and Graham Wehmeier of Diamond Creek Vineyards. 

“Premiere is a great time to put a special one-off wine in front of distributor partners and wine shops and share something that will never be able to be made again,” says Jonathan Tyre, assistant winemaker at Inglenook. The Inglenook PNV wine was sourced from massale selection vines, which are ancient vines dating back to the founding of the estate, grafted onto younger rootstocks. 

Cathy Corison, a Napa Valley winemaking icon, is known for her Corison Winery single vineyard bottlings from her Sunbasket and Kronos vineyards. For her 2023 PNV wine, she made a blend of the two that was beautifully balanced and nuanced. 

While most of the Premiere wines star Cabernet Sauvignon, some winemakers use the event to showcase other grape varieties that shine in Napa Valley. Heidi Barrett and her daughter Chelsea Barrett, the winemaker at Materra Cunat Family Vineyards, created a savory, dark-fruited Grenache dubbed Helluva Dream by blending fruit from Hell’s Half Acre Vineyard in Calistoga with Materra’s Field of Dreams Vineyard in Oak Knoll.  

Winemaker Julie Robertson of Crocker & Starr Wines used a rare Cabernet Franc clone called The Goddess to make her wine, which was floral with hints of spice that are a Cab Franc signature. A trio of Rosemary Cakebread of Gallica, Diana Snowden Seysses of Snowden Vineyards and Jaime Araujo of Trois Noix teamed up to  make a bright and smooth Right Bank blend of Cabernet Franc and Merlot. Hyde Vineyards in Carneros poured a Pinot Noir from seven clones that was so vibrant and aromatic  it seemed to have wings. 

And one of the favorite outliers was Schramsberg’s late disgorged 1999 Reserve sparkling wine. As winemaker Jessica Koga poured precious tastes, vintner Hugh Davies recalled that 1999 was a cooler vintage that produced higher acid wines. After 25 years aging on the yeast lees, the blend of 73% Pinot Noir and 27% Chardonnay seamlessly wrapped hints of fruit and toast in indescribable umami.

Saturday Barrel Auction

For many, the highlight of Premiere Napa Valley is the Saturday barrel auction, where they finally get to bid on the wines they’ve been tasting for the past few days. Whitehall Lane owners Tom Leonardini II and his sister Katie Leonardini were co-chairs for the Saturday auction, along with their winemaker Jason Moulton. 

Purchasing a Premiere Napa Valley lot allows retailers and restaurants to offer a one of a kind wine to their clientele. Vintners create either 60, 120 or 240 bottle lots of wines that are bottled and labeled after purchase and shipped to the winners.

For example, Brown Estate Vineyards, which is best known for Chiles Valley District Zinfandel and Petite Sirah, poured a blend of 80% Cabernet Sauvignon and 20% Zinfandel that showed with notes of black olive and dark fruit. The blend evokes their original Chaos Theory bottling, which was served at a White House state dinner during the Obama administration. 

A team from Sotheby’s including auctioneers Meaghan Steele and Quig Bruning conducted the Saturday auction that netted 10 percent more than the 2024 event. The auction lots that earned the most included red wines from Simon Family Wines, The Mascot, Hourglass and Quintessa, a Chardonnay from Hudson and a sparkling wine by Schramsberg Vineyards. 

“For me, PNV is a celebration of the vintage and it’s almost like a harvest celebration,” says Richard Young, Sotheby’s vice president and head of auction sales in the Americas. “This is just such a unique opportunity for Sotheby’s and we’re so honored to partner with NVV because this is an important moment each year for Napa Valley.”

Vintners and winemakers who make the top-selling lots come away with feeling that they’ve made a meaningful contribution to the Napa Valley wine community.  

“The opportunity to come together at Premiere has been truly inspiring, and we’re thrilled with this year’s auction results,” says Linda Reiff, president and CEO of Napa Valley Vintners. “The support shown speaks volumes about the dedication of our trade partners and the exceptional quality of the 2023 vintage. It’s been a privilege to be surrounded by so many passionate people who share a love for Napa Valley.”

“We consider ourselves a family here in Napa and this is like the holidays when all the aunts and uncles and cousins get to come visit,” says Jaime Araujo, Napa Valley Vintners’ board president and owner of Trois Noix Wines.  “Especially right now when we know there are some challenges that we’re all facing in hospitality and in the wine industry, getting together and being able to kind of have our shared passion work to lift everyone up and kind of support each other is just essential.”

Trade members are invited to save the date for next year’s Premiere Napa Valley. The event is set for February 18-21, 2026, and be chaired by father and son winemaking duo Chris Phelps of Ad Vivum Cellars and Josh Phelps of Grounded Wine Co.

And wine lovers and collectors interested in attending a similar event with tastings, dinners and charity auction benefiting charitable causes, can consider coming to the valley for The Collective Auction Napa Valley on June 6-7, 2025.