Hey guys. Hope you all survived the snowstorm.
Oh wait, we live in one of the most beautiful places in the world, so we mostly just watched the chaos on our phones.
But real talk for a second…
If you or family/friends are coming into SFO, Oakland, or Santa Rosa over the coming days, good luck and safe travels.
Here’s what’s going on this week closer to home.
If You Ride The Vine…
Here are the details for the Vine Transit schedule change.
If you take the bus even occasionally, skim this. Updates include timing shifts, some stop changes, and a few route-specific tweaks.
Route 21 is back on I-80. That’s the big one if you use it for getting out toward Fairfield/Vallejo connections.
Route 11 is now every 55 minutes (not 60). Small change (especially with how inconsistent the bus can be), but good to be aware of.
Route 11X changed. It no longer stops at Redwood Park & Ride, and travel times shifted.
Route 10 has a new first southbound stop in Calistoga (Lincoln Blvd at Stevenson).
Route E added 2 new stops for McPherson Elementary (Pueblo Ave). Useful if you’re doing school logistics.
Update schedule (effective Jan 11 2026):
A Heads Up I Wish Didn’t Need To Exist
PSA: The “Nigerian Princes” have come to Napa
So I know most of you are tech-savvy enough to clock this instantly, but sharing it anyway because some of us are falling for it…
Napa County says there’s escalating phishing scam impersonating County departments and staff, and some locals have already been scammed out of thousands of dollars :(
The latest version is pretending to be Planning, Building, and Environmental Services and asking for wire transfers or payments for permits/applications.
The move (30 seconds before reacting saves you a lot of pain):
Real County emails end in @countyofnapa.org. Anything else is a red flag.
Don’t pay anything from an email thread, especially if it feels urgent.
If you’re unsure, contact PBES directly using the official info: 707-253-4417 or [email protected].
If you know a small business owner or someone less tech savvy in your life, keep an eye out for stuff like this. They’re the easiest target for these stealing crooks.
The wine check-in (for the rest of us)
So I don’t work in wine. Shocker. I do weird stuff like write this newsletter for “work”.
But if you live here, wine still runs in the background of your whole life. And kind of like Wi-Fi, you only notice it when’s acting up.
What I’m hearing from a couple friends in the industry (and the numbers back it up) is: it sucked last year, and 2026 is not magically saving anyone.
Source: SVB 25th Annual State of the US Wine Industry Report
A few high level numbers from the report:
2025 US wine volume: ~329M cases (about -2% vs 2024).
2025 total sales value: ~$74.3B (about -1.6% vs 2024).
Premium wineries (SVB peer data, 1H 2025): revenues down 1.2% in both cases and dollars, and inventories are “balanced to slightly heavy.”
The gap is getting ugly: top quartile wineries posted +8% sales growth and 11.9% operating income, while the bottom quartile saw -10.2% sales and a -10.5% operating margin.
Even though, this doesn’t impact my job at all…I can look at that chart and know it’s not great for a lot of our friends.
When wine slows down, the whole town feels it. Staffing. Hours. Openings. Sponsorship money. Even how busy restaurants feel on a random Thursday.
Real talk: if you’ve noticed people being slightly more serious lately, this is part of it.
The move: If you have a friend in wine, ask them one question this week: “Is it picking up yet?”
Then let them talk for 12 minutes. They’ve been holding it in.
Measles is back. That was not on my 2026 bingo card.
Napa County confirmed a single measles case and they’re coordinating containment.
It’s the first case in over a decade. Weird, right?
Measles is basically one of those “we thought we were past this” diseases that can pop back up once in a while. The US actually declared it “eliminated” in 2000. (Which sounds final, but it basically means it stopped spreading here nonstop, not that it disappeared forever.)
So just an FYI, the move is simple: read the County note and follow their guidance.
One more practical thing: if you feel sick and think you were exposed, call ahead before walking into a clinic. Nobody wants to accidentally turn a waiting room into a group project.
Downtown Musical Chairs
This is a new segment I’m going to call: Downtown Musical Chairs.
Latest one I saw: Eiko’s closed its Oxbow location (Jan 11 - sorry, a little late) and is consolidating into the First St. spot.
Never really thought about it until now, but it is kind of weird they had two locations within a mile of each other.
Like all those Starbucks that popped up over the years - when are they going to consolidate those?
Also: Chateau Buena Vista’s downtown tasting room closed (and a JCB tasting salon in Yountville also closed). Ahem - see the wine segment above.
And to round out the “musical chairs” update: we talked about it in last Monday’s issue, but Don Perico isn’t gone.
They vacated because of construction, and the plan is a new custom space next door with a target reopening in Summer 2026 - right around that Kohl’s / First Street project zone.
That’s it for this week.
Feel free to reach out as always. I love hearing from you all <3
If you see something in your day to day that would be genuinely useful for everyone, hit reply and tell me. I read every one.
Also - my friend helping me with Napa Lowdown is way more tech-savvy than me and wants to build a couple simple web tools or apps for locals.
If you had to pick one, what should we build first? Here are some ideas we had in mind, but feel free to suggest your own.
- Happy hour finder
- Grocery store price compare/item lookup
- Gas Price Map
Thank you so much. Callie.