Far Niente Turns 125

 

The Far Niente Winery is turning 125 this year. And the old girl is looking good.  A birthday like that merits a party and that’s what the owners did this weekend, throwing open their gates to about 800 people who flooded the grounds to dine, hear music from world-famous performers _ Joshua Bell, Jean-Yves Thibaudet and trumpet sensation Chris Botti _ and finish up the evening shaking what their mommas gave them at a barn dance.

Mr. Vinecdote and I put on our gladdest rags and joined the party. Guests included Margrit Mondavi, widow of wine country pioneer Robert Mondavi, Gordon Getty, resplendent in blue and white stripes, Bo and Heidi Barrett of Chateau Montelena, Boots Brounstein of Diamond Creek Winery, chefs Cindy Pawlcyn and Michael Chiarello and the lovely Leslie Sbrocco, host of KQED’s “Check Please.”

Festivities started with a sip of Dolce dessert wine and then it was into the cellars for chardonnay and a candle light stroll past barrels and strategically placed hors d’ouevres. After that it was on to the food booths, where restaurants from throughout the valley were serving. I had roast pork, pulled pork sandwiches and steak-on-a-stick. I wanted to be sure to get in all four food groups, so I had another pork sandwich.

Fortified in every way, we were in just the right frame of mind for the entertainment portion of the night, which began with duets by Bell and Thibaudet.  “Wow, this is gorgeous,” Bell said of his surroundings as he introduced a piece by Dvorak. It really was. The stage glowed softly as night fell, each perfect note hovering in the air before melting into the darkening sky.

Here’s a little snippet.

 

 

Bell, who got to know the people at Far Niente through his appearances at the Napa Valley’s summer Festival del Sole , joked that his 1713 Stradivarius was of an older vintage than anything on hand at the winery. He’d been abstemious, keeping a clear head for playing, but he assured concert-goers he had something good waiting in his dressing room.  Trumpet sensation Chris Botti was next, putting on a smooth show that moved effortlessly from classic favorites to an intense jam session.

A highlight of the evening was the Parade of Wines, in which friends and staff hefted in methuselahs (the big bottles that hold the equivalent of eight 750 mls) of old vintages. The 1984 was a standout for me, amazingly fresh and velvety.

The winery goes back nearly a century beyond that, to 1885 when it was founded by one of the original forty-niners, John Benson. He picked the name Far Niente  from the Italian, “dolce far niente,” or “sweet to do nothing.” Which makes sense if you think about the hardscrabble life of a miner.

The winery was abandoned with the onset of Prohibition in 1919 and stayed that way until 1979 when the late Gil Nickel bought it and began a three-year restoration while taking courses in winemaking and grapegrowing.    Today it’s run by Nickel’s partners, among them his widow, Beth Nickel, and the venture includes the Nickel & Nickel Winery as well as Dolce, a winery devoted to a single (delicious) dessert wine, and En Route, a pinot noir.

After Saturday night’s party, the Far Niente crew was taking Sunday off, Beth Nickel announced with a smile. And then, she said, they’ll start planning the next celebration.

I’ll drink to that.