Naples Wine Auction Numbers Back Up

Last year the results of the Naples Winter Wine Festival in Florida showed an economy where even the wealthiest patrons were slow to open their wallets. The results of this year's auction are a little more uplifting. The Naples News reports that the Naples Winter Wine Festival at The Ritz-Carlton Golf Resort at Tiburon in North Naples raised a preliminary total of $8.06 million for children's charities in Collier County. That's around $3 million more than last year's total and the overall mood appears to have been far brighter with reports of an energetic room and even a few bidding wars. It's not as high as the previous years when $14 and nearly $16 million results were seen but it is a step in the right direction.

Many lots sold for over six figures including a four-day trip to Manhattan for two couples with the best seats in the best restaurants, Yankee Stadium and live tapings of television shows which went for $170,000. A 14-night voyage aboard The World for two couples sold for $160,000. Two couples will be hosted by jewelry company Chopard at the Cannes Film festival in a lot that sold for $160,000. A ten-day South African odyssey for two couples through the country's premier wine regions and landscapes sold for $340,000. One woman paid $130,000 for a lot that is topped by a dinner with Robert Redford. A lot that featured a Michael Kors makeover and a trip to the Project Runway finale fetched $150,000.

And of course there were many large wine auction lots including a 2003 Chateau Lynch-Bages presented in a rare double magnum and two nights for two couples at Cordeillan-Bages in Pauillac, France that sold for $170,000. A lot of 30 wines from Burgundy sold for $100,000. And someone really likes the monster bottles, a lot that included four mammoth 9-liter Salmanazars, one each of 2005 Chateau Haut-Brion, 2005 Chateau La Mission Haut-Brion and two 9-liter bottles of the 2009 vintage sold for $150,000.