Three Days on the Sierra Riviera, and What They Built
This past weekend, the North Shore of Lake Tahoe put on one of its finest shows. Not just the lake, glittering under a stiff mountain breeze, but the people who gathered along its shore for the 4th Annual Incline Wine + Food Lake Tahoe, held Friday, August 28 through Sunday, August 30.
Staged at a private six-acre lakefront estate right here in Incline Village, the weekend brought together 16 family-owned Napa Valley estate wineries, Laurent-Perrier as Exclusive Champagne Partner, and a few hundred of our neighbors and friends. The organizers describe the setting as the "Sierra Riviera," and they paired the elegance of Old Tahoe with the heritage of Napa Valley. Having stood on that lawn watching the light go gold over the water, we can confirm the description holds up.
What Surprised Us Most
Here is the thing we did not expect. Many of us on the Sabrina Belleci Team have lived in Incline Village for years and years, some of us for decades, and we still walked away from this weekend having met more new people than we could count.
New neighbors who bought last spring and are still learning which beach is which. Families who came up for a season and quietly decided to stay. People who arrived from the Bay Area, from Texas, from places that get a lot more humidity and a lot less snow, and who now talk about Incline the way people talk about a place they chose on purpose.
We think that is worth saying out loud, because it is easy for a long-time local to feel protective of a small town in transition. We feel something closer to joy. Watching this community change, watching it draw people who want to invest in it, volunteer in it, raise kids in it, and yes, show up for a fundraiser on a windy Saturday afternoon, has been one of the real pleasures of the last few years. The town is not what it was in 1995, and it is not supposed to be. What has stayed constant is the part that matters, which is that people here take care of each other. The new arrivals figured that out fast. Several of them were bidding in the silent auction before they had finished unpacking their moving boxes.
Who Poured: The 2026 Featured Wine Partners
Sixteen family-owned Napa Valley estates made the trip up the hill. If you tasted something over the weekend you have not stopped thinking about, here is where to find it:
Thank You to the People Who Made It Happen
A heartfelt thank you to Daniel Clark, founder of Incline Wine + Food, for building something that has so quickly become a fixture of our North Shore calendar. His stated goal was to make this "the definitive flagship wine weekend for the Lake Tahoe region," built specifically around family-owned estates rather than big labels. Four years in, that focus is exactly what makes the weekend feel like ours rather than a road show that happens to stop here.
None of it happens without the generosity of this year's sponsors:
We are also proud that our own Sabrina Belleci Team | Inside Incline| Casa Tua team served as Presenting Partner and host this year. It is a privilege to be part of something that gives back to our community in such a meaningful way.
Where the Money Actually Goes
It would be easy to let this story end at "the wine was wonderful and the cause was good." But our community deserves more than that. We deserve to know what our support actually does.
One hundred percent of the proceeds from the Wine, Travel & Experiences Silent Auction and the Cellar Starter Opportunity Drawing go directly to the Boys & Girls Club of North Lake Tahoe, an organization that has quietly shaped the lives of local kids since 1998. Here in Incline Village, that means the Duffield Youth Program, based at Incline Elementary, which gives kindergarten through fifth graders a safe, structured place to land before school and after the final bell, from 7:45 in the morning and again from 3:15 until 6:00 p.m., rather than heading home to an empty house while parents are still finishing a shift.
So what does that look like for a child?
Homework help and healthy food, so a kid whose parents work until six is not doing math alone at the kitchen table or skipping dinner altogether. A membership that costs $50 for the year, which is what keeps quality after-school care from becoming the first thing cut from a family budget in a resort town where the cost of living runs high. STEM and robotics programming that puts a kid's hands on a circuit board for the first time. Arts, music, and creative programming for a child who may not have another outlet. Summer camps that keep kids active, engaged, and supervised during the exact months when working families need it most. And character and leadership development, the quieter and harder-to-measure work of helping a young person learn to lead, mentor a younger club member, or simply believe in themselves. Those five areas, Education & Career Development, Health & Life Skills, Sports, Fitness & Recreation, The Arts, and Character & Leadership Development, are the Club's core program pillars across every site it runs.
Multiply that across the roughly 1,500 to 1,800 young people the Club serves each year across Incline Village, Kings Beach, and Truckee, and a silent auction bid on a magnum of Napa cabernet stops being just a nice gesture at a party. It becomes a meal. A tutor. A safe place to be a kid for a few more hours. That is the real return on investment from a weekend like this one.
And the Timing Could Not Be Better
There is a reason this year's giving feels especially consequential. The Boys & Girls Club of North Lake Tahoe has announced plans for the Duffield Center for Great Futures, a new Incline Village campus that will extend the Club's reach from infancy all the way through high school.
At a high level, here is what has been announced:
For a community that talks constantly about workforce housing and workforce retention, this is one of the most practical answers anyone has put on the table. Families stay where their children are cared for. Every dollar raised at events like this one is part of building that.
Why We Live Here
Between the wind doing its best to rearrange every hairstyle on the estate and the laughter carrying out over the water, this was one of those Incline Village weekends that reminds you why we all choose to live here. Beautiful surroundings, generous neighbors, a town that keeps welcoming new people, and a shared understanding that when we celebrate together, we should also give together.
Thank you to Daniel Clark, to this year's sponsors, to all 16 estates who poured, to every guest who raised a paddle or bought a drawing ticket, and to the new faces we were lucky enough to meet. You made a real difference for the kids of North Lake Tahoe this weekend.
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