When my dad asked me to accompany him on the Napa Valley Wine Train, I wasn’t sure what to expect. As a native of Napa, I regarded the Wine Train the same way I regarded Fisherman’s Wharf in San Francisco: it was an attraction constructed for tourists, a place where no self-respecting local would be caught dead. I always figured there was nothing worthy about the train, and imagined the dining to be as slow and stodgy as the hulking beast itself.
But my dad, invited aboard to pour his wines for the Friday Vintner’s Luncheon Series, had room for a guest. Not one to turn down a free meal, especially one accompanied by wine, I agreed. No twisting of arm needed.
I drove up to Napa from the Bay Area one Friday morning in May. When I got to my dad’s house, situated on the same two acres our winery is on, he was wearing long pants. This was my first indication that the Wine Train was something to be taken seriously. My father—no matter how low the thermometer gets—only changes out of shorts for major events: weddings, graduations, mosquitoes.
“Wow, dad, pants. This must be big time.”
We drove down to the train station, which is located off Soscol Avenue, one of the main thoroughfares through the city of Napa. Inside the large train depot, soon-to-be passengers were listening (and not listening) to a man onstage instructing how to pick a wine.
“It may have gotten a 97 from the Spectator,” he boomed, referring to Wine Spectator Magazine, the literary last word in wine ratings, “but the best wine is the one you like and that’s that.”
I glanced around the room. It looked like a bunch of Midwesterners on vacation: blue-hairs in shorts and button-down, short-sleeve shirts; men with handlebar mustaches and ladies in sun hats; families with hard-of-hearing relatives in need of liquid placation. I was beginning to think my preconceived notion of stodginess was going to be fulfilled.
“Dad, this looks like the senior citizen special,” I whispered.
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