A guide to living the high life in Napa
Nearly 50 years ago, arts patron Maria Manetti Shrem left her native Italy for Northern California, having fallen in love with an architecture student at UC Berkeley. Although their union ultimately didn’t last, she stayed out of her love for Napa and for San Francisco’s vibrant arts scene.
“I came here with very little money, and we would go to Napa Valley, and I would say, ‘Maybe one day we will have a place here — it reminds me so much of Tuscany,’ ” she said. “I am thanking God it materialized.”
After building a career as a distributor of Gucci accessories, Manetti Shrem, 74, built a summer home on a 60-acre estate in Oakville in 1994. She named it Villa Mille Rose (“villa of a thousand roses”), and used its vineyards and olive trees to begin producing balsamic vinegar and extra virgin olive oil on a small commercial scale.
“I like that there are only 300 residents in Oakville,” Manetti Shrem says. “There is a very country feeling. … My heart was set on having a place here from the moment I came to Northern California.”
The estate escaped harm in the recent wildfires, but it prompted Manetti Shrem to temporarily move her collection of paintings to San Francisco for safekeeping. In recent years, she and her husband, Jan Shrem, formerly owner of Clos Pegase Winery in Calistoga, have sold or donated much of their art collections to support the new Jan Shrem and Maria Manetti Shrem Museum of Art at UC Davis.
Twenty years ago, Manetti Shrem created a wine group of Bay Area locals that visits a top wine region of the world each year, which has only deepened her love for Napa Valley. “I tell people that there are 26 miles of valley, and we have the most incredible conglomerate of great chateaus and great wineries,” she says. “I think Napa is a very unique wine region. It’s easy to visit, has great wineries and great food.”