October is here, and this month on Grown in Napa Valley, host Caleb Mosley welcomes Karen MacNeil, author of The Wine Bible and co-founder of Come Over October. The campaign is built on one simple invitation: open a bottle and invite someone over. Karen shares how the idea came to her on an early-morning dog walk in 2024. Wine consumption was slipping, and she found herself asking why the industry wasn't telling its own best story. With co-founders Gino Colangelo and Kimberly Charles, and no budget or infrastructure, she launched what she describes as the largest grassroots pro-wine campaign in the U.S. It has since been taken up by wineries, retailers and grower groups from Texas (where it became "Come Over October, y'all") to Canada and New Zealand.

Karen and Caleb discuss why the campaign focuses on wine and social well-being rather than health debates. Karen describes wine as the ultimate farm-to-table beverage and an antidote to loneliness, and explains why she would rather unite wine drinkers than divide them by generation. She also explains the ancient Greek reasoning behind the 750-milliliter bottle. 
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In the spirit of Come Over October, Jan Krupp comes over for Glass with a Grower with a 2008 Krupp Brothers Cabernet Sauvignon from the M5 block, one of his favorite blocks at the heart of Stagecoach Vineyard. Jan was a practicing physician before he became a grower. He recalls spotting a listing on a telephone pole in 1995 and taking on a mountain property with no water, no road easements and plenty of rocks. He shares how tastings with his winemaker clients guided plantings across roughly 500 acres, and why the team behind Stagecoach (especially his brother Bart and vineyard manager Esteban) made it all possible. He also talks about his new memoir, Forging Eden, due out in late October. Jan closes with a candid view of today's downturn, the toughest he has seen, and his confidence that Napa Valley's terroir will carry the region through.

• "It's based on this very simple but powerful idea, which is that for 8,000 years, wine has brought people together." - Karen MacNeil
  
• "Wine is an enormous antidote to the leading social problem in the US, Canada, and New Zealand today, and much of Europe, which is loneliness." - Karen MacNeil
  
• "This down cycle seems worse, Caleb, than before. I've never seen so many unpicked vineyards in Napa. ... I think there's a tremendous value in Napa Valley terroir, and the types of grapes, so I do think we'll recover." - Jan Krupp
  
• "Many decades ago, Jess Jackson told me that Napa is one of the five best places in the whole world to grow Cabernet Sauvignon. And I think he was right." - Jan Krupp
  
• "You couldn't go three steps in this valley without someone putting a wine glass in your hand and filling it with something absolutely delicious." - Caleb Mosley
  

Governor Newsom signed AB 1890 (Aguiar-Curry) into law on September 30, 2026. The bill doubles the State's annual matching funds for the Napa County Farmworker Centers Account, from $250,000 to $500,000 per year.
This is great news for the people who tend Napa Valley's vineyards, and for the whole community that has worked for more than two decades to make sure they have a safe, affordable place to live during the season.

Housing in Napa County is scarce and expensive. When workers can't find housing, they often have to commute long distances, live in overcrowded conditions, or leave the region altogether.
Napa's three farmworker housing centers help with that. They offer stable, low-cost seasonal housing, and they also provide:

• Daily meals
• Healthcare access
• Vocational and safety training
• English language programs
• Other support services that help farmworkers thrive

AB 1890 builds on AB 317 (Aguiar-Curry, 2017), which created the Farmworker Centers Account and authorized state matching funds. With operating costs rising, the added funding helps keep these centers open and running well for years to come.

​Supporting farmworkers has been part of NVG's work from the beginning. Our founders, including Andy Beckstoffer and Ren Harris, pushed for fair treatment of growers and for better conditions for the people who work the land. Ren Harris also founded the California Winegrower Foundation, now Ag Health Benefits Alliance, which today provides healthcare for more than 1,500 agricultural employees.

In 2002, Napa County's commercial winegrape growers created County Service Area (CSA) 4 and voted to assess themselves per acre to fund the farmworker housing centers. CSA 4 has generated more than $10 million for the centers since then. In the most recent vote, in 2022, growers representing 87% of planted acres voted to continue the assessment.

This spring, NVG Executive Director Caleb Mosley sent a letter to the Assembly Committee on Housing and Community Development urging an "AYE" vote on AB 1890. In it, he wrote:
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​"Our valley would not serve as a global leader in wine grape cultivation without a highly skilled and dedicated workforce. It is our duty to provide safe, clean and comfortable housing for farmworkers that expertly tend our vines and strengthen our community."

NVG joined a wide coalition of supporters. Agricultural groups, nonprofit service providers, healthcare organizations, philanthropic funders, and Napa County all spoke up for the bill together. According to the County, several legislators pointed to Napa's public-private model as one worth replicating in agricultural communities across California.

No single group sustains these centers. Growers fund them and provide the jobs. Nonprofits deliver services on the ground. Philanthropic partners give grants and donations. The County runs and coordinates the centers. Now the State has doubled its share.
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That partnership was also recognized nationally this year, when the National Association of Counties gave Napa County's farmworker housing partnership a 2026 NACo Achievement Award for Community & Economic Development.

"I shared this news with our Vineyard Policy Committee, and it was the best part of my day," said Caleb Mosley. "I'm glad to see the industry, the community, and the County all rally around this to get it passed."
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Thank you to Assembly Majority Leader Cecilia Aguiar-Curry for authoring AB 1890, to Napa County for its leadership, and to every partner and grower who helped make this happen.