Sunday E-dition: Enjoying a last fling of summer
By Dave Stoneberg
NAPA VALLEY, Calif. — Welcome to September, cooler weather, the beginning of fall, the end and start of the regular season in both baseball and football and, at our house, the falling of leaves from our blue oaks. Today is the Sunday of the three-day Labor Day weekend, which might mean that you’re off camping or on a trip, enjoying the last fling of summer before the weather turns. This year, the beginning of September is likely before the winegrape harvest begins in earnest. Many people will work long days, seven days a week, rushing to bring in that precious crop, seeking perfection in the bottle in a few years’ time.
It also marks four months since a small band of journalists, writers and editors began Napa Valley Features. We currently have 1,577 subscribers and 31% of those, 494, have paid. If you’re enjoying reading these stories without popups getting in the way, or advertising of any kind, please subscribe and if you can, please pay for it. Our writers, me included, are supported by fees from subscribers, because that’s how our model works (much like NPR stations, like KQED.) It costs $5 a month to subscribe, which is less than one fancy cup of coffee at Model Bakery, or $50 a year. Thank you to those paid subscribers, we value your trust in us as we strive to bring you the best stories of the Napa Valley.
Our readers love us, and we have their written comments to prove it: “I want to know what is going on locally” and “I support your zeal to keep local news relevant and independent journalism alive” and “Napa resident for 47 years, looking forward to your continued informative articles about our valley” and “Very nice to have local stories by local writers. Keep up the great work” and “Another powerful set of words and photos.” Two of my favorites are: “I appreciate that this journalism is fact-based, local and relevant. It’s increasingly rare to find articles that aren’t just a writer’s opinion, labeled as journalism,” and “I so appreciate the hyper-local news and features you provide. Not only is it relevant to my day-to-day life, it’s some of the best reporting, writing and photography this former print journalist has found in local news … or ANY news! Thank you!”
Those amazing photographs, by the way, are largely by Tim Carl, who thinks nothing of getting up way before dawn for a long hike to capture a magnificent sunrise or staying up way past his bedtime to take a photo of the “Super Blue Moon” rising over Sterling Winery.
Since the beginning of May, our writers have brought you 151 stories, including the latest one from me yesterday, a donation of 117 acres of land at the top of Howell Mountain to the Land Trust of Napa County from the Black Sears family.
One of the first stories we published was the story of Roots of Peace by Sasha Paulsen, the laid-off features editor from the Napa Valley Register. She joined the Napa Valley Features crew almost immediately as did Dan Dawson and Paul Franson. In fact, it was Dawson who hosted a “retirement party” for Paulsen at his Outer Space Wines location in downtown Napa. Paulsen has not retired, instead she has transitioned to a freelance writer, bringing stories of the Napa Valley to both Napa Valley Features and to the Press Democrat. She is also bringing her skills to Highway 29 Media, which owns and publishes the Calistoga Tribune and the Yountville Sun.
The stories by Paulsen, Dawson and Franson were among the first stories we published, and they each had between 1,194 and 1,313 views. Last month, two stories by Paulsen, both on the winegrape harvest beginning, were viewed by 4,919 and 4,869 people. My, how we have grown, thanks to you, our faithful readers.
Currently, we have some 18 writers as independent contractors submitting stories for us. In the past week, Tim Carl wrote a fascinating piece about the Napa Valley’s history and the Indigenous people who inhabited it for hundreds of generations and how they lived here and cared about the land. Jeni Olsen wrote about the need to listen to teenagers’ stories, and Rosemarie Kempton enjoyed the Calistoga art walk, which is held on the first Saturday of every month. Carl broke the news of the opening of NOMA House Café & Collective on Friday in St. Helena and Virginie Boone wrote about the 40th anniversary of the founding of the Howell Mountain AVA or American Viticultural Area. Next week, Boone will tell us about the release of the Firetree Chardonnay. Also last week, our copyeditor Glenda Winders told us about herself and wrote about her connections with the Napa Valley.
Also next week, Mariam Hansen and Tony Poer will join Napa Valley Features for the first time. Hansen is the research director of the St. Helena Historical Society and will tell us of the mysterious stone walls that are adjacent to the Silverado Trail just north of St. Helena, and Poer writes about the retirement of Ted Edwards, the longtime winemaker at Freemark Abbey.
Two of our regular contributors, Kathleen Scavone and Anne Ward Ernst, will tell the tales of a late summer magic show and Heritage Eats, an event at Charles Krug Winery. You may remember Ernst as she was editor of the Weekly Calistogan a few years back. Since then, she has written for a variety of publications and today she covers the Public Utilities Commission, the group that regulates utilities, including PG&E. On Friday we publish The Weekender, a cultivated list of things to do in our valley and a story from the University of California’s Master Gardener program.
Please join us every morning at 6 a.m. And, if you can, please sign up and join the proud 31% of our readers who pay for their subscriptions. Thank you.
Dave Stoneberg is an editor and journalist who has worked for newspapers in both Lake and Napa counties.
I love Napa Valley Features, and am extremely happy to hear that readership is growing and that more and more readers are now paying subscribers. SO wonderful and well earned. It is also great to learn that contributors are being paid, as possible. Here's to that growing with readership of this wonderful vehicle. Thank you all for your great pieces!