For the week of July 30 - August 5, 2003

Wine auction
sets new standards

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By DANA DUGAN
Express Staff Writer

While some folks watched the sky and fretted about rain over the weekend, others gathered under a tent and on what turned out to be a very sunny golf fairway for the Sun Valley Center for the Arts Wine Auction and related events.

The auction’s events were well attended and much excellent wine was sampled, bought, bid on and consumed.

Most remarkably, this year at the Auction on Friday, July 25, a record amount was raised—$602,000—to support the Sun Valley Center for the Arts.

Highlights of the auction included an appearance by Dick Grace of Grace Family Vineyards, with Hailey resident Jazmin Osornio. Two years ago he bought one of the young student’s art work and had it etched on a six-liter bottle of Grace Family wine, which was eventually auctioned off for $18,000. Osornio is a student at the Center’s popular bilingual art classes for students.

Another art student, Amy Rivera, sang "On My Own" from "Les Miserable" to the large gathering preceding the bidding for the Center’s scholarship fund.

Five bottles filled with a selection of fine wines with scenes of Baldy on them caused a bidding war and finally reached $26,000. David Reynolds was the auctioneer and Mike Murphy was the color commentator for the evening. Between the heat and the precipitation, it was a more casual affair than in years past.

Though it rained most of the morning on Saturday, the sun came out in the afternoon for the Wine Tasting Extravaganza under the tent at River Run and the picnic at Big Wood Golf Course.

At the tasting, boutique wineries turned many heads who were looking for new selections for their wine cellars, including award winning wineries Hunt Cellars, Shafer, Ridge Vineyards, DeLille Cellars, Stonefly Vineyard, Dunham Cellars, K Vintners, Merry Edwards, Phantom Hill and the new Frenchman’s Gulch bottled in Ketchum.

And as usual the Wine Auction Picnic catered by Bigwood Bread and Mountain Pride was a lively party on a Big Wood fairway, with entertainment by Paul Tillotson and his trio. Smooth finish to a great weekend.

 

The Idaho Mountain Express is distributed free to residents and guests throughout the Sun Valley, Idaho resort area community. Subscribers to the Idaho Mountain Express will read these stories and others in this week's issue.