Why?
Wine is one of my passions and several years ago I started outsourcing phone calls for my Internet company which freed up a lot of my time to explore in greater detail things I love to do, and turn these passions into financially self sustaining businesses yet at the same time benefit others. I strive to incorporate my passions into my day to day and professional life comprising what Michael Polenske of Napa's own Blackbird Vineyards eloquently calls, "the business of leisure", or more simply put - invest in what you love.

To the best of my knowledge a project of this magnitude has never been conducted in Napa. I am aware of the authors of A Moveable Thirst who visited 141 mostly walk-in Napa wineries, blogger Carolyn Tillie who has visited at least 130 Napa wineries, several websites that list Napa winery provided information, select tour guides, and probably a number of select well-known wine tasters who have tasted a large number of Napa wines. But, no one who on this scale, has personally taken the time to meet with representatives from each winery, visit the winery if there is one, include photos if applicable, taste the wine and then compile all this information into individual winery reviews.

I live in neighboring Sonoma County but chose Napa because it has more International recognition than Sonoma County and it is situated along a well defined geographical valley whereas the appellations in Sonoma County are more spread out. Perhaps if I have the energy after finishing the initial major research for this project, I will consider Sonoma County! Besides occasionally taking friends to favorite Sonoma County wineries, my only connection to the Sonoma wine scene is the annual Harvest Fair event in Santa Rosa which I attend every year.

Corrections/Updates?
If you have corrections or updates to make to any of the winery listings on this site, please either email dave@pon.net (include the winery name and the type of correction or update) or use the Post Comments link next to every winery review on this site. We greatly appreciate any updates. Because of scope of this project and the rapidly changing wine industry, updating is a major part of our work on this site. Things change so fast in regards to wineries in the Napa Valley that it is often hard to keep up. We make our best effort to discover changes: revisiting wineries, subscribing to winery mailing lists, attending trade, educational & wine tasting events including select release and harvest parties, talking to people in the industry, reviewing many related blogs & websites, watching wine related videos, as well as spending considerable time in the Napa Valley (this is where the osmosis kicks in).

Do you have a clever motto?
Sure, how about this? "The Napa Wine Project is A Moveable Thirst on Steroids."

Have you broken any wine glasses on this project?
The answer is 2. We are averaging one broken glass per every 263 visits. Our apologies to Quixote and Toquade.

How to Link a review to my own website?
You can link individual reviews to your own website. Go to this page and click on any of the links - the URL that shows in your address bar is the direct link to any review listed on this site.

How will you publicize this site?
We want to make it worthwhile for the wineries listed on this site. I have a variety of local and national media contacts from one of my other businesses and once I complete the initial content gathering for this site, I will contact these media outlets on a case by case basis. In my research I have come across a plethora of a wine community sites and will publicize this project on those sites. The Napa Wine Project will be cross referenced in our printed guide. I have experience with SEO (Search Engine Optimization) and continue to work on this aspect of the project. Any printed material will cross promote this site including color printed postcards (selectively being distributed in the valley), as well as a printed guide (see below).

What is your Printed Guide?
		This guide (currently in development) will be dedicated to walk-in wineries, select appointment only wineries, collectives and most other tasting venues in Napa Valley. It will be distributed at specific locations in Napa Valley and will be updated twice a year. It will be advertising driven - with ads coming not from wineries, rather from resorts, restaurants, spa's and other tourist related businesses. Interested in advertising in this guide or know someone who might be? Email dave@pon.net to be added to our contact list for when we release pricing. Click image to the left to view a sample of our printed guide (2.12MB)

Why will this guide be unique?

It is focused entirely on Napa based wineries
   (all walk in wineries, select appointment only wineries, wine shops with tasting rooms and collectives are included)
I visited each winery (went on tours if available)
I tasted at all the wineries in the guide - often on multiple occasions
   (As a result I try to keep a very personal perspective to the reviews and include information tourists may find valuable).
The advertising revenue is not coming from wineries

How do you handle reviews of collectives?
We have written individual reviews of all collectives currently open in the Napa Valley. Collectives taste wines from multiple vintners. We do not just show up and taste through each wineries wine at the collective and then do the review based on this - rather we contact each vintner directly for a private tasting - then we write a separate review for that particular winery. As an absolute last resort, if we are unable to taste with a representative from the winery, we will taste and conduct our review in the physical collective facility.

How about tastings?
We attend a variety of trade and consumer tastings. We tried doing several initial reviews of wineries at these tastings however tastings are definitely not conducive to this purpose. As a result, we soon learned to exclusively use tastings to follow up with previously visited wineries and to make new connections.

How do you contact wineries?
We call the winery directly to discuss our project and then setup an appointment for a meeting and tasting. If we are unable to contact the winery via phone, we will send an email or personal postal letter. As a result, all businesses in Napa Valley producing wine commercially will have been contacted by us in one way or another.

Is your Napa winery not yet listed?
We are continuously looking for Napa wineries to interview who are not listed on this site. Please email dave@pon.net to setup a mutual time where we can meet and taste. The more information you can offer during our meeting, the more detailed and resourceful the review will be. Their are two requirements for any review on this website; 1. I meet a representative from the winery in person and 2. I taste the wines. Meetings usually take place at the physical winery, the owner or winemakers home, winery office or in the vineyards. A typical meeting takes about an hour.

How many commercial wine producers are there in Napa?
We have identified over 750 unique commercial wine producers in Napa County. We are fairly sure there are more that we are not even yet aware of! Note that many of these do not own their own winery facility. We have personally visited and tasted with well over 500 commercial wine producers. More information and the entire list is found the bottom of our Project Notes Page.