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Over the past  several years, the Napa Valley has increased the amount of wine it exports to China.  In response to Trump’s tariffs on steel and aluminum, the Chinese have retaliated by placing tariffs on hundred of American products, including wine.  We decided to take look at how this might impact two Napa winery.  

Jim Conaway’s new book, the final chapter in his Napa trilogy, NAPA AT LAST LIGHT, portrays our Napa Valley as a community trashed by vineyards and wineries, overrun with tourists and the rich, somehow immune from the immutable laws of business gravity and with a population that doesn’t know how to protect itself.  Only he, and those that were here in 1968, seem to know the “truth.” 

The arguments that wine has to literally be sold to real people in order to actually have real value, that the wine business, even in Napa, is a highly competitive, cost-intensive international business, existing in a world of distribution and retail disruption, seems to have no impact on Conaway.  From high atop his East Coast perch, he launches attacks on our Board of Supervisors, the Napa Valley Vintners and all of the institutions that have made our economy and our county so strong.

As so many small cities and towns across America are being hollowed out,  Conaway seems to resent Napa’s economic success, and longs for the days of yore.  Thank goodness the Butler Bridge is not a drawbridge, or I’m sure he would suggest pulling it up.

My conversation with Jim Conaway:

The Silicon Valley Bank 20018 State of the Wine Industry Report

John Tuteur on a wide range of issues. Including a new election procedure for Napa County, policies for protecting your base year value when moving or rebuilding after the fires, and a frank conversation about his personal issues raised by the Napa Grand Jury.  

For those with only one interest, or with with limited time, here is the breakdown:

Election issues:        00:00 – 18:10

Fire Assessments:   18:10 – 28:01

The Grand Jury:      28:01 – 44:01