Napa Valley is well known as a wine and culinary destination but ten years ago, a festival was founded to establish it as a cultural power as well. Festival del Sole runs for ten days in mid to late July (next year: July 15-24) and attracts a panoply of well known artists. (Among the performers in past years: jazz musician Chris Botti, opera star Renee Fleming and six time Tony winner Audra McDonald. ) It also involves most of the major wineries in the Valley to host special lunches and dinners and it is during those events that festival regulars who come every year catch up. “It’s like a summer camp for adults,” said one regular who like many, comes up from her home in Los Angeles. “We look forward to seeing each other every year. We wouldn’t miss this event.”
There are obvious reasons. Wine lovers would obviously be drawn to a dinner at wineries such as Far Niente and Opus One. The settings are, of course, magnificent, including wineries such as Seven Stones and Darioush that are fascinating on their own as buildings, the former as a gallery of modern art, the latter, a copy of a Persian palace. The lineup of performers is world class and although financially subsidized, some appear simply because they’re fond of the festival. “What we paid Herb Alpert wouldn’t even have paid to bring up his band,” says Rick Walker, the festival director. “But he wanted to be here.” He and wife Lani Hall performed at twilight at the stone castle Castello di Amorosa to rapturous applause and a standing ovation. The Dance Gala featuring 12 soloists and principal dancers from leading companies such as American Ballet Theater, the San Francisco Ballet and the Royal Ballet earned the same reaction on one of the festival’s last nights. So did actor and now singer Kevin Spacey performing at the Festival Gala.
Following the Gala, there was an auction with lots such as a red carpet appearance with Spacey, a private viewing of the Palio in Siena, and a trip to Cuba with Rick Walker plus dinner with Gloria and Emilio Estefan; over $2 million was raised to help bring free and low cost concert performances to local residents and increase arts education for students in Napa County schools. That, as organizers explain, is the real goal of the festival but experiencing exceptional performances in beautiful settings isn’t a bad way to achieve it.
How to Get There: In style, of course. If you're flying into San Francisco and renting a car, it's very easy to get a car that's on par with the others driven by Napa residents. Enterprise's Exotic Car Collection has elite cars ranging from a BMW 585i to a Maserati GranTurismo Convertible with no more paperwork than renting a Nissan Altima.
