Train Shoots New Music Video at Shafer Vineyards

Here's something to add to the list of unexpected wine pairings. The late-1990s pop band Train (“Meet Virginia”) recently took over one of the top wineries in Napa, Shafer Vineyards, for the day to film a new music video for their new single, “Drive By.”

Shafer is more the sort of place that you'd expect to read a press release about Dudamel conducting one of his Mahler renditions at the winery, or perhaps that the L.A. Opera is debuting a one-night traveling edition of Simon Boccanegra in Napa. (Sure, why not?) If for no other reason than a winery that produces $200 bottles of wine seems more like a $200 ticket pairing sort of place in today's Match.com theory of compatibility relativity.

Then again, we'd take any work-related excuse, Train, Mahler, Plácido Domingo or otherwise, to spend the day in Napa shooting a video. As for why the video unfolds like a Lifetime Network Tuesday night romance movie, we will politely refrain from speculation.

In brief, the storyline follows the band's lead singer, Patrick Monahan, courting a woman who supposedly works at the winery, with all the requisite grape-stomping, dinner-hour wine toasts and romantic late-night cellar sipping to go along with it. Or in television terms, Monahan and the gorgeous woman fall in love (commercial break), he leaves her (commercial break), he comes back to find her (roll credits).

We're pretty sure we were supposed to get some sort of soap opera romance satisfaction from the Hollywood ending, but with top Napa Cabernet grapes going for as much as $5,000 a ton, we keep wondering what Train's location fee ran.

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