Nora Murphy is on stage. Minutes earlier, Mariposa metal band JNX closes their set with Black Sabbath’s “Crazy Train.” Now, a sweaty but happy crowd leans in to hear who won this year’s contest.
It’s late July at the second annual Battle of the Bands in downtown Napa’s SoFi District—three blocks of music, 21 bands, five stages, including the Uptown and Folklore. An estimated 4,000 people fill the streets, drinking wine, dancing and punting the occasional beach ball—or, during surf metal band Sharks in the Water, an inflatable orca.
After a full day of introducing acts, Murphy returns to announce the winner: Noetic Pause, a band she recently featured on her Thursday night punk rock radio show, Left of the Dial, on KSVY Sonoma. Two years prior, KSVY’s program manager spotted Murphy spinning vinyl at a winery’s hi-fi happy hour and invited her to host the show.
Few DJs spinning punk vinyl at 64 began their careers designing department store windows. But Murphy has turned reinvention into an art—and she’s not the only one reshaping Napa this way.
Napa’s downtown revival is being fueled not by young disruptors, but by women in midlife launching second or third careers. Chrissy Jeffries of Jeffries General Store, Faith Ventrello of Folklore and Erica Simpson of Uptown Theatre—all friends of Murphy—have embarked on new career paths or started businesses later in life. Their ability to pivot careers, drawing on past experiences to create new opportunities, is also helping to transform a vital district.
From L.A. to North Bay
By 2016, Murphy was at another crossroads. Reinvention was nothing new—her career had already zigzagged from visual merchandising at Saks Fifth Avenue and Neiman Marcus to film and TV art departments, and later to owning a successful dog-walking and boarding business.
But Los Angeles proved less forgiving with age. At 55, facing ageism and stalled opportunities, she took the advice of her friend, Erica Simpson, and moved north to Napa. Though she knew “nothing about wine,” Murphy quickly landed at Gundlach Bundschu, California’s oldest family-owned winery in Sonoma.
“I had great teachers,” she recalls. “The more they taught me, the more I wanted to know. And I fit in. It was a complete culture of creativity and fun and music and wine. Knowing Napa and Sonoma are very tight-knit, I felt incredibly welcomed and encouraged.”
She soon earned a WSET Level 2 certification, excelled at tastings and tours, and became a fixture at the winery’s on-site concerts, selling wine and even driving the vineyard’s vintage Austrian Pinzgauer. “I was doing everything I could possibly do,” she says. “I’ve told the story of a 167-year-old family-owned business 7,000 times, and I never tire of it.”
Her previous careers had equipped her with skills in logistics, strategy and hospitality—as well as a performative flair—that now fuel her roles as wine educator, DJ and podcast host. And while she notes Wine Country’s current challenges due to shifts in tourism and alcohol preferences, she remains optimistic.
“Downtown is thriving,” says Murphy. “It was sleepy; now there’s so much traffic—you can feel the energy when you walk around. And I do think it’s the Uptown, Jefferies General, Folklore starting that.”
Life, Remixed
Around the corner on Third Street, another reinvention is in full swing. Faith and Steve Ventrello opened Folklore in September 2023, blending their twin passions for music and wine. What began as a vision for a wine bar and record store quickly expanded into a full-service restaurant after they unexpectedly secured a liquor license. Today, Folklore doubles as a gathering place where locals and visitors can eat, drink, browse vinyl and tune into a low-power FM station that Faith Ventrello operates from inside.
“It was like an idea that had been floating around for a decade, and then the right building appeared at the right time,” she says. Still, it was a leap. “We’re not young; we can’t retire, so what does our future look like at a certain age? We decided to bet on Napa and make this our place.”
Ventrello’s music roots run deep. In the ’80s, she was music director at the University of Washington’s KCMU (which later became Seattle’s KEXP), before a 12-year span as vice president of marketing in Los Angeles and New York at Capitol, Elektra and Virgin Records. In 1998, she and Steve launched Parador, a Napa wine label built around Tempranillo and Cabernet, and eventually relocated full-time from Los Angeles.
Middle Age, New Stage
When Simpson moved to Napa in 2012, she was working in events and sponsorships for the San Francisco Chronicle. It paid the bills, but it didn’t compare to her earlier career at the Concord Pavilion, where in the mid-’90s she helped launch the amphitheater’s premium seating program. Then in 2017, a chance opening pulled her back into music. The general manager of the Uptown Theatre—one of her clients—was leaving and suggested Simpson take over.
“It was convenient; the timing was right,” she says. “It sounded more like my style, an opportunity to get back to something I love: seeing different shows every night, talking to people and not having to commute for the first time in my life.”
Since arriving, Simpson has watched downtown Napa’s $200 million transformation into a vibrant cultural hub. “It’s become a place where everybody wants to be and everybody wants to visit,” she says, noting the support network among small, independent businesses south of First Street. “We’ve become a close-knit group.”
Next Chapter, Napa
The SoFi District—short for South of First Street—officially took shape in October 2023, when Chrissy Jeffries of Jeffries General Store, and Adam McClary of Gamling & McDuck Wine, realized the downtown buzz was drifting toward Oxbow and Clinton Street. Rather than get left behind, they rallied nearby businesses, launched a joint marketing push and hired a social media manager to spotlight their corner of Napa.
For Jeffries, building community was personal. After losing her tasting room job during Covid, she and her husband, Pat—a longtime fixture in Napa’s restaurant scene—opened Jeffries General Store in 2022. “I wanted to bring something downtown that was fun and exciting, but also necessary,” she says. “Grocery and Tylenol don’t pay the rent downtown,” Jeffries admits. She pivoted, curating gifts, home goods and essentials that keep locals and visitors returning.
That adaptability reflects Jeffries’ wide-ranging career—from managing Crate & Barrel and IKEA stores to running a minor league hockey team in Michigan. Back in Napa since 2011, she worked locally before deciding to gamble on her own idea. What sustains her most, she says, is connection. “Some of my closest friends now are people I’ve met since opening the store. That community has been the best part.”
For Murphy, Jeffries, Ventrello and Simpson, reinvention in midlife isn’t just survival—it’s a statement. Each has drawn on decades of experience to launch fresh ventures that pulse with creativity, collaboration and resilience.
“We’re all trying to create a path together,” says Murphy. “People see the enthusiasm and the creativity and the damn fine wine that we make and the hospitality that we provide. And that’s fun for us.”
In Wine Country, second and third acts are not just possible but essential. And as these women prove, downtown Napa’s next chapter may be its boldest yet.
