Avenue Vine

Today, the world around Copia is a changed place, physically and psychologically. The bustling Oxbow Public Market opened next door last fall, Ritz-Carlton and Westin hotels are under construction close by, and innovative new destinations are just blocks away, including Ubuntu, a widely hailed vegetarian restaurant and yoga studio.

Seven years in, Copia also has: a new president and chief executive (its third), former board of trustees chairman Garry McGuire Jr.; a new dean of wine studies, master sommelier Andrea Immer Robinson; and a renewed focus on wine and food.

Both McGuire and Robinson are Napa Valley residents who, the hope is, are more in touch with what visitors to this part of the world want to experience and learn.

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"Our vision is that if you are a foodie or a wine lover in the United States, this is the mecca where you have to make your annual pilgrimage," said McGuire.

For Copia, that includes an emphasis on already popular events like its walk-around tastings, more consumer-friendly wine education classes and seminars, and the creation of interactive content from such classes that will be available online.

"Copia has had amazing luminaries in the wine world come through our doors, but has not captured a lot of it," McGuire said. "We are working hard to position Copia as the number one destination on the Internet for wine and food education."

To get there, he's tapped Robinson, who excels at making wine approachable and fun. Author of the popular books "Everyday Dining with Wine," "Great Wine Made Simple" and the annually updated "Wine Buying Guide for Everyone," she is developing a curriculum of wine classes and workshops for both professionals and the public. Among her first offerings this spring was a weekend-long immersion in wine and food pairing.

"In my classes, students learn to taste and pair like a pro, discovering techniques for knowing what a wine will taste like just by looking at the label," she explained in an e-mail.

"I'm excited because this is really the first offering of its kind for consumers in Napa," she continued. "Funny when you think about it, really."

Robinson is one of only a dozen or so women in the world to hold the title of master sommelier, recognized as the highest level of wine knowledge achievable; she passed the rigorous set of exams in 1996.

She previously served as dean of wine studies at the French Culinary Institute in New York and was a James Beard Foundation winner in 2002.

She's also hosted "Simply Wine" and "Pairings with Andrea" on the Fine Living Network.

Copia is also looking to become a more desirable place to stop in on a daily basis, both for locals and tourists passing through, again using wine as the draw.

To that end, a new tasting room and wine bar is being built, with plans to offer more than 500 wines by the glass and a friendly space to highlight regional wineries. It follows on the heels of a casual bistro, due to open this week CQ, where all menu items are priced under $20. Hours are 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. daily.

"The new bistro and wine bar are the first steps in Copia's transformation," McGuire noted.

The idea for Copia first sparked in 1988, when the late Robert Mondavi and his wife, Margrit, started commingling food and wine luminaries from around the country to explore the idea of establishing a small institution to educate and celebrate wine, food and visual arts.

They eventually lured such august experts as Robert M. Parker Jr., Julia Child, Thomas Keller, Martha Stewart, Alice Waters and Hugh Johnson to form a board of trustees. By 1996 the board was able to buy 12 acres along the Napa River, with the Mondavis gifting the future center $20 million of their own money to get things rolling.

Construction on an 80,000-square-foot stone, polished concrete, metal and glass building with 3½ acres of meticulously landscaped gardens followed in 1999.

Since then it's been an up and down road, but new leaders with new plans yield new promise.

"Copia was created to celebrate and explore the abundance and diversity of this country's fine wine and food," said Napa Valley vintner Agustin Huneeus, the owner of Quintessa and a Copia trustee. "I'm confident Garry will be the right person to help us."

Source: “At Copia, 7 years later, Changes aplenty,” Virgine Boone, Press Democrat, May 28, 2008