On a recent drive to the Napa Valley, I saw something I don’t remember ever seeing before: empty lands once blanketed in vineyards that had been recently plowed over.

With U.S. wine sales falling every year since the onslaught of the pandemic in 2020, it’s understandable why that may become an increasingly more common sight, unfortunately.

So, when I was invited in as a guest at Sequoia Grove Winery in Rutherford, I was heartened to find so many visitors — on a weekday no less — who were there enjoying tastings and purchasing bottles of wine to tote home.

Yes, they were more middle-aged, not the twenty-somethings that wine producers have been hoping to lure who have been increasingly shunning wine and even other alcoholic beverages.

Yet, this was a happy bunch, lounging at patio tables underneath a canopy outfitted with fans, so that even on an exceptionally warm day, as when I visited, it felt comfortable.

Then again, it’s hard not to have a lovely time at this winery, which gets its name from the soaring sequoias on the property that are more than a century old.