About Beyond Napa Valley

The Mission

Since the inception, Beyond Napa Valley's mission has always been to discover new wines and wineries.

The History of BNV

The history of Beyond Napa Valley starts in 2007. That’s when Haydn had the idea of writing a series of books about the hidden gems of the wine country—starting in Dry Creek Valley & Alexander Valley. The book eventually sold out and within years became a collector’s item amongst devoted fans.

The goal was to write a series of books, but the internet soon started to promote said small wineries and the literary medium that was used starting to become an endangered species within the sphere of travel. While the book medium was shelved (no pun intended), the mission and goal of helping people discover new wines and wineries wasn’t.

Throughout the 2010s, Haydn wrote about various wine regions, from (yes, Napa) to Washington State including the newly formed Lake Chelan AVA. Also during that time, he was hired by one of the wineries that he wrote about— Pedroncelli Winery, working the tasting room on weekends and event days.

In 2019, Haydn decided to build an app and to turn what was a book into a usable tool for people to help discover new wineries. The app was launched in late 2019 and plans were in the works to fully advertise the app the following year.

It turned out that 2020 wasn’t the best year to advertise to people to both travel and go indoors with other people. Hindsight is, well, ya.

Fast forward to early 2024 and a friend asked him if he’d ever decide to re-launch the app again. Not sure of exactly if it was a good idea or not, he called up Mercury Winery, to get a feel for if this was a good idea or the next dot com.

Mercury said yes (they are officially the first winery to say yes to the program again) and here we are. No more app, but the same mission.

Welcome to the new Beyond Napa Valley. Now let’s go wine tasting.