From Anti-Wine Train to Dedicated Employee

by Kira Devitt, Napa Valley Wine Train Marketing

 Carol Dakdouk moved to Napa when she was 12 years old. She went to school in the Valley with her sister, Barbara, and when the Wine Train started running in the late 1980s, Carol wanted nothing to do with it. In fact, she hated it. She hated the noise, she hated waiting as it crossed the street, she hated the entire idea of it, but most of all, she hated the Wine Train because it seemed like everyone else did.

One day, Carol’s sister, Barbara, got a job in the Wine Train’s reservations department, and began pressuring Carol to give it a chance.

“No way,” Carol recalls saying. “I don’t want to ride the stinking Wine Train.”

Barbara responded by saying things like, “It’s not what you think,” or “just try it once.” For 17 years, Carol persistently refused to try the Train, and then she reluctantly agreed to ride.

Carol remembers her first time on the Train was “the next best thing since Christmas.” She loved how it was decorated, and loved walking through the different cars and looking at the countryside. And even though she’d been to St. Helena and back countless times, she remembers, “I saw things that I had never seen before.”

“The nice thing about it,” Carol says, ”is you can have a glass of wine on the Train, or two or three and not worry about a cop sitting there, getting ready to pull you over and give you that nice DUI.”

And as for the food? “I eat food on the Wine Train that I don’t even like, and honestly, not because I work here. It’s just, I won’t eat it anywhere else. I trust Chef Kelly. [On the Train], I’ve tried foie gras... I’ve tried quail. I’ve tried the salmon. I love the salmon on the train and I [usually] hate salmon.”

Besides drinking and eating during your journey to and from St. Helena, something else that you can’t do in a car is stand on the back while it is moving.

Carol says,“Going out to the platform makes you feel like you are in Hollywood and I was one of those locals that hated seeing people waving from the Wine Train. But then you do it, and it is so much fun.”

When we drive somewhere, we are usually focused on the destination, and sometimes we forget about the journey. When you are on the Wine Train, you have a unique opportunity where you can simply enjoy your meal, enjoy the view and enjoy each other.

If you are a Napa resident, and have never ridden the Wine Train, you really should. Something that you might not know is that Napa residents get $25 off of Train fare for the Gourmet Express package. Another perk for residents is that if you tell the reservation agent when you check in that you are a local and you brought a bottle of wine, we’ll have the first corkage fee waived for your group.

If you still aren’t convinced, call the reservations department and ask for Carol. She really loves the Napa Valley Wine Train, and would love nothing more than a chance to tell you all about it.