Auctioneer Lydia Fenet
Besting last year’s record, the 2025 Naples auction raised just over $34m. Unique wine experience lots fetched in the range of $500-800,000 and a package with a wine-coloured Bentley netted $1.7m.
Top wine lots included a curated trip provided by Napa’s Staglin Family Vineyard. Two couples will join the Staglin family on a tour of Switzerland – an experience complete with luxury nights, Michelin-star meals in Geneva and Chamonix and a custom Panerai watch for each guest. The trip also includes plenty of wine, with each couple receiving a six-litre bottle of Staglin’s new release Cabernet Sauvignon. The lot sold twice for $800,000, netting the charity $1.6m.
Also selling at $800,000 was the lot titled ‘Meet Me on the Right Bank’, a five-night use of the accommodation at Château Troplong Mondot sponsored by Bordeaux Concierge. The luxury trip included plenty of Michelin-star meals, private tours and tastings with Château Troplong Mondot’s Grand Cru Classé neighbours.
An eight-night stay at various Antinori properties, from Villa Tignanello in Tuscany to the Umbria estate Castello della Sala was also on offer. The final prize, which was won for $750,000 includes rare Antinori wines in jeroboams and magnums. (A full list of the Naples auction lots is available here.)
Since its inception in 2001, the Naples Winter Wine Festival has raised over $336m. That money has been used to fund the Naples Children & Education Foundation (NCEF), which has worked with various charities and agencies, impacting over 350,000 children in the last 24 years.
All those programmes and initiatives have been funded by the weekend of events, a silent online auction and the one-day auction. The 650 guests gather for a weekend, where they’re wined and dined with some of the top châteaux and estates from Pomerol to Tuscany to Napa Valley and a cadre of America’s most famous chefs.
A winning bidder. Credit: Naples Winter Wine Festival
So, how has this upstart wine and travel auction in South Florida come to dwarf the earnings of auctions with rich histories like the Hospices de Beaune and Auction Napa Valley?
The children of Collier County, Florida
‘It’s for the kids’ is a refrain you hear repeatedly at the Naples wine weekend. That’s how this whole thing started. Local residents wanted to find a way to make a difference in the lives of children within their community.
Collier County, Florida, has some of the most lopsided economic disparity in the world. According to a Collier County Community Needs and Assets Assessment study by Q-Q Research Consultants in 2021: ‘The top 1% of residents in the county have an average household income of $4,191,055, while the bottom 99% have an average household income of $57,258.’
The county government does not fund any social services that serve the county’s children.
As part of the Naples Winter Wine Festival, attendees can see the impact of their donations at Meet the Kids Day, one day before the auction. There is an opportunity to mingle with the children, to see the programmes the festival funds and hear first-hand testimonials about the change it has helped create.
A 17-year-old boy named Dawson shared his story with auction-goers. He lost his mother, who battled addiction, just a year ago. His father struggled to find him the help he needed, but for an auction-funded non-profit called Valerie’s House, which provides mental health and grief counselling services to children. Dawson spoke to the crowd about his journey, his plans and the impact of the funding that goes to the programme, which ‘saved him.’
The foster parent of a five-year-old boy named Colson shared his journey. His mother was severely addicted to drugs. He lived with her in a car, where she sedated him with pharmaceuticals and sometimes marijuana. When he came into foster care, he couldn’t speak and would often spend days curled in the fetal position. The NCEF-funded Able Academy…
Source : https://www.decanter.com/wine-news/new-record-set-for-naples-winter-wine-festival-auction-548724/
