In Vino Veritas

FAMILY FARMING: "My family has owned this piece of ground for 35 years and we've made wine for 24. We have been an organically farmed estate since 1984. It's really all about the agriculture. We fine-tune each block in the 40-acre vineyard and then take that mindset over to how we treat the fruit on the winemaking side."

THE LANGUAGE OF CABS: "We're trying to make our cabernets speak our vineyard. Our goal is not to chase that international style trend. High-alcohol, high-oaked style is not what we do best. Our wines are very elegant, well-structured and stand the test of time."

NOW DRINKING: "We drink a lot of different wines, like grüner veltliners out of Austria. I love the minerality and crispness. We love Spanish wines-albariños and grenache roses. And my brother lives in Oregon where there are interesting wines. There are just great wines being made all over. I want wines that taste like their origins. I want the taste of the grapes. You can never grow static because there are so many to taste and explore."

For the third time, Ann Colgin, owner of Colgin Cellars and charity wine auctioneer extraordinaire, will take the podium in Naples on auction day. The former head of Sotheby's West Coast wine operation says, "From an auctioneer's standpoint, it's my favorite event. The people in Naples love to have a

good time."

TRUE LOVE: "My husband and I were both in love with wine before we fell in love with each other. We both had our own cellars, and together we expanded upon what we loved. When I met my husband, I was working for Sotheby's. While we courted, he got the [wine auction] bug. Now he is always looking at catalogues. When we got married, instead of having our guests sign a guest book, they signed a salmanazar of our '95 Coglin cabernet and put it in our cellar. Now whenever we have a great dinner party, we send a bottle around the table to be signed. That is what I really love about wine: It brings people together for a great experience."

NIGHTLY RITUAL: "Every night we go down and pick something different out of our cellar. And I'm always trying a different cabernet from Napa Valley because I want to see what's out there. The focus of my life right now is really my winery, although I do still consult with Sotheby's and work in a fair amount of charity work."

PLEASE DON'T: "Serving white wine too cold and red wine too warm is my pet peeve right now. Chill white wine too cold and you don't get any complexity. And red wine doesn't show enough of its spirit if it's too warm."

NAPLES SPIRIT: "I'm so taken by the enthusiasm and generosity of the people in Naples. So many people open up their homes [and] make every person who comes to the event feel welcome. They all like to win [at the auction], too, and they understand that when they win, it's children in need who are winning. When you look at what individuals and wineries donate as auction lots, it's amazing. These lots are something that people couldn't put together on their own. That makes the auction unique and enticing."

John Shafer, a second-time visitor to the festival, celebrated the 25th anniversary of his family winery Shafer Vineyards by penning a book, From the Ground Up. Wine lovers happily pay $175 a bottle for his Hillside Select cabernet sauvignon.

$175 A BOTTLE? "I never thought I would be producing a wine that costs over $100 a bottle. But Hillside

Select has far exceeded our expectations. It's a wine of a place, and it's really tied in the viticultural movement."

UPPING THE ALCOHOL: "There's a lot of controversy

around the high-alcohol wines that are now prevalent. We were at the vanguard of that because we deliberately used riper grapes, and riper grapes translate into higher alcohol. It makes better wine-more depth of flavor. Of course, you have to have high-quality fruit that balances the alcohol and results in a harmonious wine. There's a place for this style of wine and a place for other wines with lower alcohol and a different style."

CAREER SWITCH: "The past 25 years were a change in my career, with new learning and information, and that was very stimulating. It's something that I would recommend to everybody. People get jaded working at the same job in the same thing."

WINE-LOVER'S COUNTRY: "I used to say that America is a long way from being a wine-drinking nation. That's changing rapidly. It's wonderful, but it really is a surprise. Wine's sort of the in thing-we're now aware of wine and its relationship with food."