Napa Valley Wine Train Birthday Excursion

The family, before we head out from the Napa DepotIn honor of my beautiful mom's birthday, Beth and I traveled up to Napa to join my sister Shauna and my parents Donna and Ed, for a day spent on the Napa Valley Wine Train (NVWT). The Wine Train has had a long and sometimes contentious history in the Valley. The movement to start the NVWT was headed by Vincent DeDomenico of Rice-A-Roni fame, among many other food brands. The long legal battle was bitterly fought throughout the valley with many residents against the idea, including my own grandfather Bud Schroeder. Local protesters argued that the Valley was already fraught with enough tourists, a rather reasonable view, actually. Eventually the legal battle ended up in the California Supreme Court, where DeDomenico et al prevailed. The original dissension has dried up over the last 18 years of operation and, for the most part, the Wine Train is now an accepted part of Valley life.

Napa Valley Wine & Food Recommendations

Originally published at my personal MySpace Blog My wife, Beth, and I have made many different wine trips around NorCal and we've built up a string of places that we really enjoy. As various friends and co-workers learned this over the past few years, I've started writing some rather extensive emails of recommendations for places we like in different regions. So far, I've made a Napa Valley, Carmel-by-the-Sea/Carmel Valley (my favorite AVA), Sonoma Valley, Russian River/Alexander/Dry Creek Valleys and a small one for Amador County (where I actually haven't spent much time). I thought that these would be great to post here and keep kinda updated. In honor of the home team, I'm going to post about Napa first. I have included links to each individual website, as well as the accompanying information we have on WineLog [WL]. Enjoy!
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