We turned over the blog to three vintners with a “Letter To The Editor” in time for April Fool’s Day.

No, This Is Not April Fool’s. It’s Napa Valley.

By any reasonable standard, this sounds made up: a small, family-owned winery facing millions of dollars in fines for pouring wine for visitors. But this isn’t satire. It’s Napa County in 2026.

Let’s start with the case of Lindsay Hoopes. Napa County sued her winery, alleging permit violations tied largely to tastings and visitor experiences. A court ultimately sided with the County, imposing punitive penalties that have ballooned into the millions—reportedly nearing $4 million, a figure that exceeds the winery’s lifetime revenue.

The County’s position is straightforward: rules are rules. It argues Hoopes conducted unpermitted tastings, events, and other activities, and that enforcement is necessary to uphold zoning laws and protect the agricultural preserve.

But step back and consider what’s actually at stake.

This is not a case about pollution, unsafe conditions, or bad actors harming the land. It is about whether a small winery can welcome guests, pour its own wine, and tell its story without facing financial ruin.

And Hoopes is not alone.

She, along with two other Napa Valley wineries—Smith-Madrone Winery and Summit Lake Vineyards—has taken Napa County to federal court, alleging something far more serious than a permitting dispute: violations of constitutional rights, including free speech.

Because that’s what a wine tasting is—a form of communication. It is a product demonstration, a conversation, a direct connection between farmer and consumer. Restricting that activity isn’t just regulating land use; it’s regulating speech.

The broader concern is inconsistency and scale. Some Napa wineries host hundreds of visitors a day. Others—often smaller, older, or family-run—are told they cannot host any. The difference is not always environmental impact, but paperwork, timing, and the ability to navigate a costly and complex permitting system that can run into the hundreds of thousands—or millions—of dollars.

That imbalance matters. Because Napa’s identity isn’t built on a handful of large, well-capitalized estates. It’s built on generations of small wineries—people who farm their land, make their wine, and rely on direct relationships with customers to survive.

When those wineries are priced out of compliance, the result isn’t preservation. It’s consolidation.

Even more troubling is the precedent. If a county can impose multi-million-dollar penalties for what many would consider routine, harmless business activity, what does that mean for other small agricultural producers? What does it mean for proportionality, fairness, and basic economic survival?

None of this is to argue that rules shouldn’t exist. Napa’s agricultural preserve is one of the great success stories in American land-use policy. But laws designed to protect agriculture shouldn’t end up strangling the very farmers they were meant to support.

That’s the question now moving through the courts.

Is Napa County preserving agriculture—or redefining it in a way that only the largest players can afford?

Because if this continues, the future of Napa Valley may still include vineyards.

But it may no longer include the families who built them, and at the time of year when we look for examples of April Fool’s-type situations, this is a big one.

Stuart Smith, Founder/Owner, Smith-Madrone Winery, St. Helena

Lindsay Hoopes, Founder/Owner, Hoopes Vineyard, Yountville

Heather Griffin, Owner, Summit Lake Vineyards, Angwin

Let’s bop around the internet to see how wineries and wine-related entities are communicating. There’s a lot of good cheer, and most importantly, clever and memorable messages happening. Wineries telling personal stories, pulling the curtain back to share behind-the-scenes moments, moments of humor and fun.

For example, did you know you could saber a Champagne bottle on the slopes? Maximilian Riedel shared how to do it.  What about helping your customers wrap a bottle?!

Want to brush up on bilateral cordons? Stu steps in. Or what about letting a winery transport you to Japan for a sushi-making lesson?

Don’t you need a Christmas sweater? Dave Phinney has one for you.

Share your creativity with a unique way to share holiday spirit.

A moment of beauty in the vineyard, a drone capturing erosion control or just sharing an iconic Italian landscape. and the footprints of a visiting bear.

Hats off to Inglenook, who welcomed the community and the St. Helena Community Band in its historic setting.

Jean-Charles really did it, in his leopard boxers, jumping in to stomp grapes.

Josh took the challenge from the cellar crew to dig out a tank.

Don’t forget the obvious: what does your tasting room look like, all decked out for the holidays?! Wintry weather scenes are always appealing too.

Photogenic young winemakers are the focus of a tongue-in-cheek series in Bordeaux.

Or sharing the winery dog’s adventures, from naughty to nice.

My advice?

“Crank up” that iPhone! Don’t worry about how polished your vignette may or may not be: if it shares a ‘real’ moment in the life of your winery, go for it, share it, give it a fun caption! You never know what kind of virality you might possibly spark!

I’m a big fan of Ryan Holiday. He’s an all-around brilliant guy; it doesn’t do him justice to say he’s a leading thinker on the philosophy of Stoicism. He’s so much more. As he explains: “For those of us who live our lives in the real world, there is one branch of philosophy created just for us: Stoicism. It’s a philosophy designed to make us more resilient, happier, more virtuous and more wise–and as a result, better people, better parents and better professionals. Stoicism has been a common thread though some of history’s great leaders.”

His daily Instagram posts are inspiring and ditto his daily emails.
He has a website with all sorts of resources: dailystoic.com
He’s written many books: Book Collection
He owns a bookstore, The Painted Porch, in Bastrop, Texas

Whew, it’s very humbling. That said, he just went through a momentous ‘thing.’ About a month ago he was on the campus of The Naval Academy in Annapolis about to give a lecture in an occasional series he does there….when…..an hour before going on stage his lecture was canceled.

Why? Let him tell you: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZcnE1-SClfg

You may want to listen to this more than once. It’s so dense with ideas and historical and philosophical references, all of which applies so very directly to what we do as marketers and communicators.

He talks a lot about James Stockdale in this speech, which led me to look into “The Stockdale Paradox,” which was described at great length in the book Good to Great: Why Some Companies Make the Leap…And Others Don’t by Jim Collins. The “Stockdale Paradox” came from how Stockdale and his fellow aviators knew they’d have to rethink wartime code of conduct as they were being captured. Who could imagine that Stockdale would debate the nuances of communism with his captors?

The ”Paradox” is about:
Maintaining faith that you will prevail in the end
Confronting the most brutal facts of your current reality
Not becoming overwhelmed by the challenges
Remaining persistent and focused on the goal
Learning from mistakes and setbacks
Finding strength in adversity.

Even if you’re not spending time in the Hanoi Hilton, this ‘paradox’ can help navigate tough times whether it’s just you or your winery.

And now if you’re hooked on all things-Ryan Holiday, here are his previous lectures that he delivered at the Naval Academy:
In April 2023: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gR6l1yxpfro
And in April 2022: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=e1lqWpqUpA8&t=25s

Sometimes reading an obituary shines a light on your profession. In a recent New York Times obituary for Marvin Levy, Steven Spielberg’s long-time publicist, you can only be in awe of what he accomplished: “For 42 years, Mr. Levy was behind the scenes — promoting, polishing, spinning, safeguarding, strategizing — to ensure that his boss was viewed worldwide as Hollywood’s de facto head of state.,” the Times explained.

“Simplicity was his mantra,” Steven Spielberg said in talking about Mr. Levy. “The bicycle across the moon image we used for ‘E.T.’ or the hand of the little girl in red being held by Oskar Schindler. Those are simply two examples of Marvin’s indispensable place in my Amblin family.”

Mr. Levy received an honorary Oscar in 2018. He is the only publicist in the motion picture academy’s 98-year history to be given one, making him a folk hero among Hollywood’s PR world. PR practitioners in the wine business, take note: At the ceremony when Mr. Levy received his Oscar, Tom Hanks said “A marketing department can make you aware of a title, but it takes something of a storyteller to get an audience hooked on the story without giving away the story.”

Here’s the obituary:
https://www.nytimes.com/2025/04/15/business/media/marvin-levy-dead.html
Marvin Levy, Oscar-Winning Publicist to Spielberg, Dies at 96
For 42 years, Mr. Levy strategized behind the scenes to promote Steven Spielberg’s movies and ensure that the director was seen as Hollywood’s de facto head of state.
By Brooks Barnes, The New York Times, April 17, 2025
Reporters trying to get interviews with Steven Spielberg would sometimes grouse that his publicist’s job amounted to speaking a single word: “No.”
But Marvin Levy, who served as Mr. Spielberg’s publicist for 42 years, was responsible for much more than body blocking the fifth estate (which he usually did with a gentlemanly grace). Mr. Spielberg did not become Mr. Spielberg because of his filmmaking alone: For 42 years, Mr. Levy was behind the scenes — promoting, polishing, spinning, safeguarding, strategizing — to ensure that his boss was viewed worldwide as Hollywood’s de facto head of state.
In addition to representing him personally, Mr. Levy helped devise and lead publicity campaigns for 32 movies that Mr. Spielberg directed, including several with sensitive subject matter, like “The Color Purple” (1985), “Schindler’s List” (1993) and “Munich” (2005).
Mr. Levy died on April 7 at his home in the Studio City neighborhood of Los Angeles. He was 96. His death was announced by Mr. Spielberg’s production company Amblin Entertainment.
Over Mr. Levy’s 73-year entertainment career — an eternity in fickle and ageist Hollywood — he worked on more than 150 movies and TV shows. He helped turn “Ben-Hur” (1959), “Taxi Driver” (1976) and “Kramer vs. Kramer” (1979) into hits.
After joining Mr. Spielberg, Mr. Levy was involved with nearly every film made by Amblin and another of Mr. Spielberg’s companies, DreamWorks, including “Back to the Future” (1985), “Men in Black” (1997) and “Shrek” (2001).
“Simplicity was his mantra,” Mr. Spielberg said in an email. “The bicycle across the moon image we used for ‘E.T.’ or the hand of the little girl in red being held by Oskar Schindler. Those are simply two examples of Marvin’s indispensable place in my Amblin family.”
Mr. Levy received an honorary Oscar in 2018. He is the only publicist in the motion picture academy’s 98-year history to be given one, making him a folk hero among Hollywood’s unseen publicity armies.
Tom Hanks said of Mr. Levy at the ceremony, “A marketing department can make you aware of a title, but it takes something of a storyteller to get an audience hooked on the story without giving away the story.”
Marvin Jay Levy was born in Manhattan on Nov. 16, 1928, to Max Levy, a real estate appraiser, and Edna (Hess) Levy.
He graduated in 1949 from New York University, where he majored in English and was part of the R.O.T.C. program. After a brief stint writing questions for a game show (he was fired because his were too easy), Mr. Levy found work with Tex McCrary, an old-school public relations man, and his wife, Jinx Falkenburg, an actress and model. Tex and Jinx, as they were known, helped popularize the TV talk-show format in the 1950s. Mr. Levy credited them with igniting his interest in publicity.
In 1952, he took a two-year hiatus to serve in the Air Force. He was stationed in Michigan and assigned to advertising and public relations work. He returned to his job with Tex and Jinx in 1954.
By the mid-1970s, Mr. Levy had moved to Los Angeles to work at Columbia Pictures — most notably shepherding Mr. Spielberg’s intimate “Close Encounters of the Third Kind” (1977) into theaters.
As the film moved through postproduction, Columbia executives began to worry that it would fizzle. It was nothing like Mr. Spielberg’s pulpy “Jaws,” which had riveted audiences two years earlier. Maybe the studio should scale back its marketing and distribution plan?
“Marvin said, ‘You’re all wrong,’ and moved heaven and earth to make ‘Close Encounters’ a success,” said Terry Press, Amblin’s president of strategy and communications.
Mr. Levy retired last year. He married Carol Schild, who worked in advertising, in 1952. She survives him, along with their sons, Don and Doug, and two grandsons. “She always knew what my job entailed,” Mr. Levy said of his wife when he accepted his Academy Award. “But most friends and relations outside the industry really had no clue. I never could explain the full range of what the job really entails.” “At least now,” he quipped, “they’ll know I got an Oscar for it.”