|
 |
|
| by Jeanne Lawrence FESTIVAL DEL SOLE – NAPA VALLEY PART II The annual ten-day Festival del Sole celebrates the fine arts in life, including music, dance, visual art, culinary arts, and wine making, with spectacular events held throughout the Napa Valley. Part I of my coverage describes some of the food, music, and wine events. The story continues: FESTIVAL GALA AT MEADOWOOD NAPA VALLEY During the Festival del Sole, local vintners open their famed wine estates to guests, hosting fabulous soirees and meals prepared by local celebrity chefs and featuring local produce. Sunday Night was the Festival’s Annual Gala at St. Helena’s Meadowood Resort, a 250-acre private wooded estate. Surrounded by meadows and rolling greens, with not a grape in sight, one guest said, “I feel that I’ve been transported some place other than Napa.” As he was intended to be: the party’s theme was “The Great Gatsby,” from the F. Scott Fitzgerald novel set on the coast of Long Island. |
|
|
|
|
|
|
| THE GREAT GATSBY THEME Guests complied with the request to come dressed in white and got into the spirit of the Gatsy theme in glamorous ’20s-inspired garb, setting an elegant mood. |
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
| ROARING TWENTIES COCKTAILS |
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
| AL FRESCO DINNER |
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
| ENTERTAINMENT |
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
| THE AUCTION |
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
| AFTER-PARTY MIX A nice cross-section of attendees from Napa Valley, Los Angeles, and New York, the guests stayed on to mingle with one another. It was a relaxed and pleasant environment to greet old friends and make new ones. Meeting for the first time, Patricia Stevens excitedly told Julia Wainwright, founder of luxury designer resale website TheRealReal.com, “I’m one of your biggest customers, trust me. I’m up at 7 a.m. and bidding away!” |
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
| VINTNERS LUNCHEON AT MA(I)SONRY On Wednesday, I dined at Ma(i)sonry, with its owner, my friend Michael Polenske and his fiancée Kim Miller,editor of Napa Sonoma Magazine. Michael is also proprietor of Blackbird Vineyards, one of the Festival’s founding wineries. When I first met Michael, he had just moved to Napa Valley and bought Blackbird. He adds new ventures constantly, and I joked that someday I expect he’ll own the entire Valley. |
|
|
|
|
|
|
| THE HISTORIC BUILDING The Ma(i)sonry property, located in Yountville,has been one of my favorites for years. An original stone house, it’s one of only two local buildings listed on the National Register of Historic places. |
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
| SIPPING WINE IN THE GARDEN |
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
| A FAMILY-STYLE LUNCHEON |
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
| THE 24 HOUR PLAYS An evening of “extreme theatre,” called 24 Hour Plays, was a very popular ticket again this year. The audience liked seeing award-winning, big-name actors up close in four one-act plays that they, along with writers and directors, created, wrote, rehearsed, and performed in the space of 24 hours. This year’s participants included film and television stars Allison Janney, Christopher Meloni, Alfre Woodard, Chazz and Gianna Palminteri, Jim O’Heir, Amy Povich, Kathy Garver, Tamara Tunie, Thomas Sadoski, and Star Jones, guided by Hollywood directors David Siegel and Scott McGehee. |
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
| RACHMANINOFF 140TH ANNIVERSARY CELEBRATION AT OPUS ONE Happy Birthday, Sergei! A “once-in-a-lifetime event” to celebrate the 140th anniversary of composer Sergei Rachmaninoff’s birth, the soiree at Opus One Winery was another highlight of the Festival. It showed once again the power of the arts to bring different peoples together. |
|
|
|
|
|
|
| THE STORY BEHIND OPUS ONE Opus One is the realization of a dream shared by Baron Philippe de Rothschild of Bordeaux’s Château Mouton Rothschild and Napa Valley Vintner Robert Mondavi. I looked forward to this occasion a great deal, both to hear cellist Nina Kotova perform and to visit Opus One, which I hadn’t visited recently. I have many fond memories of time spent with Margrit and Bob Mondavi at this magnificent compound. |
|
|
|
|
|
|
| Mondavi and de Rothschild produced their first vintage in 1979 and opened Opus One as a winery in 1991. Its vineyards comprise 169 acres and are planted with the traditional Bordeaux grape varieties: Cabernet Sauvignon, Merlot, Cabernet Franc, Malbec, and Petit Verdot. |
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
| THE SETTING OVERLOOKING THE VINEYARDS |
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
| THE MUSICAL PROGRAM Three extraordinary artists from Russia—cellist Nina Kotova, soprano Erika Baikoff, and pianist Vadym Kholodenko, who won gold in the 2013 Van Cliburn competition—performed some of Rachmaninoff’s most beloved work. |
|
|
|
|
|
|
| NINA KOTOVA Lovely Nina Kotova has participated in the Festival every year. Hailing from a musical family, she studied at the Moscow Conservatory and Musikhochschule in Germany, and was an orchestral soloist for the first time at age 11. |
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
| DINNER AT OPUS ONE With so many of the Festival founders present, the evening was a sort of family night, more so since it was a celebration of the 140th anniversary of the birth of Rachmaninoff, the grand-uncle of Festival founding benefactor Tatiana Copeland. |
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
| THE CAVES AND PLENTY OF TOASTS Following the concert, guests descended from the Rotunda to dine in the romantically lit cellar where the wine is aged. |
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
| THE CUISINE |
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
| Mark your calendars for next year’s Festival del Sole, July 11–20, 2014, for a Napa Valley experience unlike any other. Patrons who would like to buy tickets can find more information at the Festival’s website, http://festivaldelsole.org. |
|
|
|
| Photos by Jeanne Lawrence, Drew Altizer, and Moanalani Jeffrey. *Urbanite Jeanne Lawrence reports on lifestyle and travel from her homes in San Francisco, Shanghai, and New York, and wherever else she finds a good story. |
|
|
|