Club members buoy Napa Valley's Peju winery until tasting room reopening

Peju Province Winery in the Rutherford wine growing district of Napa Valley had a soft reopening of its tasting room Tuesday under the new county safety protocols during the coronavirus pandemic and fully reopened on Wednesday.

One of the tough parts of the new COVID-19 safety protocols developed by state, industry and local officials is the ban on children and pets in tasting visits, according to Christine Lilienthal, director of marketing.

“We’ve always been family friendly and pet friendly, but because of the coronavirus we really can’t do that because it’s just not safe,” she said, noting that keeping kids and animals in one place can be difficult. “That was a really, really tough decision (for the Peju familiy) to make.”