Tuesday, September 23, 2008

COPIA: a guest posting perspective

I've written about COPIA here in the past--here's a perspective, from none other than my mom and dad!

COPIA, the American Centre for Wine and Food, is Napa Valley's best-kept secret. Billed as a "cultural museum and education center dedicated to the discovery, understanding, and celebration of wine, food and the arts in American culture", COPIA is much more than a museum, encompassing a first-class restaurant (more on that in a moment), a bistro for less-expensive foods and a unique all-you-can-drink wine-tasting atrium where wines are dispensed from four-bottle machines using electronic cards.

COPIA also boasts 45-minute food and wine educational seminars at nominal cost, galleries and interactive displays that provide entertaining snippets of historical information about (what else?) food and wine.

Lunch at COPIA's main restaurant is an experience. Named Julia's Kitchen, after Julia Child, you'll love the delicious, though somewhat limited selection of foods. For lunch, we tried the gorgonzola-peach appetizer salad with juicy peaches grown on the premises. It was August 15—Child's birthday. The menu featured a pricey four-course lunch using Child's own, original recipes. The vegetarian risotto and tuna salad off the main menu were good choices. Although Julia's Kitchen was not full when we visited, reservations for dinner are recommended. Lunch for two, including appetizers came to $60 with excellent, friendly service.

Complimentary wine-tasting was provided by a COPIA volunteer the day we visited. You can also go to the service desk and request a free wine-tasting card for a local winery. But note that complimentary wine tasting are few and far between in Napa these days, unless you drive out to some of the more remote wineries.

On COPIA's spacious second floor, visitors can play with creative and amusing interactive displays, learning the origins of a variety of vegetables and other foods as well as popular manufactured foods including potato chips and Kool-Aid.

Care to know more? Visit http://www.copia.org.

Friday, September 12, 2008

The Crush has arrived--it's harvest season in wine country. Here's how you can participate as well!

This is definitely the best time of year (although it's been quite cool the last few days). Generally starting in the early evening winery workers begin to head out into the field to cut the grapes off the vine and prepare them for the aptly-named Crush. I just signed up with some work colleagues to crush some Syrah next weekend...and then we'll pick up the finished cases of wine in January 2010. It's quite exciting, really!

Anyhow, you're probably wondering, as a visitor, how to participate in the Crush as well. Here's the best solution: a couple of the major wineries have "Crush camps" where you can come pick some grapes and learn a lot about the wine as well. I would recommend the Sonoma County Grape Camp, but it looks like they're sold out for 2008. They do post cancellations on their website, so check back (they have two spots up right now, 8pm on Sept 12). Although the badly-updated website at St. Supery doesn't tell the whole tale, they generally have a one-day camp as well. Call them for details, I have heard good things. As well: according to Fodor's online, Ravenswood has a course as well. Email Peter.griffith@ravenswood-wine.com to make some Zinfandel.

Thursday, September 4, 2008

Practical advice: how to remove wine stains

Well, I guess we're going to file this post under "obscure". It has nothing to do with exploring wine country, but believe it or not I get asked this question frequently. When you live up here, people ask you lots of wine-related questions, including "does Rosé have Roses in it?" and other such things. Alright, enough preamble, here's the goods:
  1. Carbonated Water, aka Seltzer for you Easterners (thanks Google Analytics for informing me that a good number of you actually visit my blog!). This method requires vigorous rubbing, but works pretty well.
  2. Salt. I owe this one to my undergraduate chemisty professor, Dr. Len Fine. Salt creates an osmotic gradient, drawing the wine out.
  3. Shaving Cream. This one is beyond me, but it works.
  4. White Wine. Always a pleasant surprise, but Chardonnay will remove Syrah.
Any others? Let me know if you have a good old home remedy :)