Napa Valley hosts V Foundation celebration to raise money to achieve ‘victory over cancer'

Starting Thursday, Napa will be in party mode as the V Foundation marks the 25th year of its wine celebration weekend. 

Four days of food, fun and some of the best wine in the valley and while there’ll be plenty of tastings, the real mission is funding medical breakthroughs and harvesting the money needed to achieve “victory over cancer.”

“He was hilarious and had a joke for every occasion,” said Beth Nickel of Far Niente Winery.

She smiled as she reminisced about her late husband Gil Nickel.

“Gil used to reinvent himself every decade,” she said.

The rocket scientist and Oklahoma nursery man had a passion for life, from motorcycles and sportscar racing, to canoeing and kayaking.

“He always wanted to learn a new skill and excel at it,” said Beth.

He brought that drive to California, in 1979 buying an abandoned stone winery, vowing to create a world class wine estate.

“I thought he was nuts because it was in ruins,” said Beth.

Three years and millions of dollars later, the historic Far Niente Winery was reborn and the Napa Valley landscape altered forever.

“He knew Napa wasn’t going to stay sleepy forever,” she said. 

Childhood friends from Oklahoma, Beth and Gil  married at Far Niente 

“That was a happy day for sure,” said Beth.

Going on to launch Dolce & Nickel & Nickel until in the late 90s when Gil began an on-and-off battle with melanoma.

“In 2002, the melanoma came back,” said Beth. 

A year later, the famed vintner died, leaving his wife to harvest the wines and the money that would help lead to a breakthrough cancer  treatment. 

Beth partnered with the V Foundation for cancer research, creating the Gil Nickel fellowship.

A million dollar grant ended up in the lab of oncologist Dr. Antoni Ribas at the Jonsson Comprehensive Cancer Center at UCLA, whose lab focuses on melanoma

“It’s not a matter of luck, it's a matter of biology. When we can understand what is happening we can develop the next generation of treatments,” said Ribas.

His lab headed the first human clinical trials on what became keytruda -- an immunotherapy drug that unleashes a person’s immune system to attack cancer.  

Fifteen years later, keytruda is now used to treat 35 different cancers and has saved countless lives.

“We have to start most of the time where it’s unknown where there is a new field, that's where innovation starts,” said Ribas. 

Innovation born of seed money that Beth said her husband Gil would happily drink to.

“It's very gratifying to have been a tiny part of developing such an important cancer drug it warms my heart,” she said. “I know Gil is so happy on heaven … he’d say ‘way to go sugar.’”

Since 1999, the V Foundation wine celebration has raised over $137 million for cancer research.

On Saturday a symposium on new treatments is being streamed online, you can check that out here.