(Wine-Searcher) - Dinner with the stars, fabulous trips abroad and even some wine – it must be Auction Napa Valley time again.

John Legend's music is like Napa Valley Cabernet: a lot of people like it, even more so when it's something they can have but most people cannot.

So when Legend unexpectedly took the stage Saturday at Auction Napa Valley to play his romantic single "All of Me", the small crowd of wealthy people – who all paid a minimum of $1700 to attend – went crazy. And then they spent a near-crazy amount of money.

Napa's annual charity auction brought in $15.8 million over the weekend, actually down from the record $18.7 million it raised in 2014. But the biggest numbers for individual lots dwarfed last year. A single bottle of wine – albeit a 12-liter Balthazar of 2012 Screaming Eagle – raised $500,000. A luxury trip to Europe set an all-time record at $2.4 million. But nine-time Grammy Award winner Legend played the biggest number of all.

Rick Jones, a retired grocery store executive who founded Jones Family Vineyards in Calistoga in 1996, paid $850,000 for Lot No. 31, "A Truly Legendary Evening". The lot, donated by Raymond Vineyards, includes dinner for 30 at the home of Raymond owner Jean-Charles Boisset with a private dinner performance by Legend on Boisset's personal piano.

"Most of my concerts are for big crowds. It's nice to do it for a small group," Legend told Wine Searcher. "When it's a small little thing, I like to do 30 or 40 minutes. I'll pick my set list as I go."

It turns out that Legend, who added to his awards pile this year with an Oscar for the song "Glory" from the film "Selma", is not only a wine lover but a fledgling vintner. He and Raymond Vineyards collaborated to produce 6000 cases of Cabernet Sauvignon and Chardonnay under the name "LVE."

"I know that my music and my wine go really well together," Legend said. "Jean-Charles and the Raymond Vineyards team are very good partners. We wanted to make the wine to reflect my personal taste."

The LVE wine will be released in the fall, but the auction attendees got to be the first to taste it.

"We said, the best way to release it is at the auction," Boisset told Wine Searcher. "John's very committed to Napa Valley. We really wanted to make something very exclusive. "

Now $850,000 is a lot of money, and it's the biggest check any one person wrote for one lot Saturday, but it's not the most anyone has ever paid (in 2007, a Staglin Family Vineyard lot went for $1.1m) and it's not even close to the most money raised Saturday by a single lot.