copia

Copia Goes Up For Sale

It looks like Copia, the the American Center for Wine, Food and the Arts in Napa Valley, is finally down for the count for good. Its Napa site is being sold by Alvarez & Marsal Real Estate Advisory Services LLC which has been retained by ACA Financial Guaranty Corp. to market and oversee sale of the property. Copia closed last November and filed for bankruptcy. The prime real estate includees 17 acres on the Napa River over three contiguous parcels. It may be sold or leased as a whole or as individual pieces.

The Copia building is a two-story, 78,632-square-foot building that includes a teaching kitchen and rooms for exhibits and the grounds include expansive gardens. The Napa nonprofit was the dream of wine great Robert Mondavi who envisioned it as a centerpiece for the wine tourism industry in Napa Valley. No sale price has been listed and it's not clear if it will be used again as a tourist destination although the size and design of the facility doesn't lend it to many other purposes.

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Tags: bankruptcy, copia, napa valley, NapaValley, wine, wine tourism, WineTourism

Taste3 Conference Suspended For 2009

by Deidre Woollard (RSS feed) —

Filed under: Dining, Events

Sadly another of Robert Mondavi's legacies is in trouble. The Napa Valley food and wine center Copia went into liquidation recently and now Taste3, the annual conference celebrating food and wine, is on hold. Taste3 is sponsored by the Robert Mondavi Winery and brings food writers, chefs, winemakers and other artisans together each year for a weekend of talks and tastings. The conference depends on both sponsorships and having plenty of buyers for the tickets, which in 2008 cost $1950 for the weekend. The current economy has proved to be a challenge for many festivals and events and Taste3 would also have to find a new venue now that Copia is closed. The next Taste3 is planned for 2010.

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Tags: copia, food, mondavi, napa valley, NapaValley, robert mondavi, RobertMondavi, taste3, wine

Copia Appears Doomed

by Deidre Woollard (RSS feed) —

A month ago I wrote about trouble for Napa Valley's Copia: The American Center for Wine, Food and the Arts. Since then it's gotten a lot worse. The Sacramento Bee reports that a federal bankruptcy court judge has blocked attempts by the center to a $2 million emergency loan so that it can stay open while it tries to reorganize $80 million in debts. The decision means that Copia which closed at the start of December will stay closed and programs will probably be canceled. In an email to the Bee, , chief executive Garry McGuire said that "the organization will wind down and be dissolved eventually." The non-profit has filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection from creditors.

Copia's tax-exempt bonds were insured in case the non-profit ever went bankrupt and the bond insurer, ACA Financial Guaranty Corp. of New York is interested in beginning foreclosure proceedings. They have accused Copia insiders of trying to enrich themselves at the expense of bondholders with a bankruptcy filing and proposed $28 million building sale but that deal is unlikely to go through now.

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Tags: copia, napa valley, NapaValley

Copia To Sell Off Main Building

by Deidre Woollard (RSS feed) —

Filed under: Wine

I rather expected this news to come after hearing this summer that the Copia: The American Center for Wine, Food and the Arts in California's Napa Valley was in financial trouble. It seems that the Copia will be selling off its main campus in Napa Valley and then leasing back part of the space. The good news is that the center isn't going completely belly up. It plans to expand its education programs and open satellite campuses with wine bars and stores. They'll need the help, the organization has a debt of $78 million, and prospective buyers are already dealing with a 50 percent write-down in value as reported in Wines & Vines.

The city of Napa might consider using the site as a civic center. Certainly the Copia building always did seem a bit large for its audience and was only stuffed with visitors during certain key festivals and events. Robert and Margrit Mondavi planned the center as a hub for Napa's expansive wine tourism industry but it never quite took off, its education-based lure never as strong as that of a hedonistic jaunt along from winery to winery in Napa Valleys verdant countryside. The most popular parts of Copia, the Julia's Kitchen restaurant and Cornucopia gift store will stay in Napa, either in the building or elsewhere and there are also potential plans for a Copia Napa wine bar.

Copia's feature may lie in San Francisco where a large wine bar and teaching kitchen could attract many more potential visitors. They've also expanded the Copia website to make it more interesting to all those interested in wine, not just potential visitors to the Copia center.

Hopefully the business or organization that ends up purchasing the space will have a tourism or wine focus. Several business including the Oxbow Public Market, the new Westin Hotel and a proposed Ritz Carlton chose their sites based on proximity to Copia and the plan to create a epicurean tourism destination. Copia is hoping to sell off the property by the end of the year.

UPDATE: Copia has temporarily closed but plans to open up again on December 1.

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Tags: copia, napa valley, NapaValley, wine

Copia, Napa's Food and Wine Center In Financial Trouble

by Deidre Woollard (RSS feed) —

Copia: The American Center for Wine, Food and the Arts , Napa Valley's gorgeous shrine to food and wine may be a wonderful place to visit but the Sacramento Bee reveals that it is a bit of a financial albatross.

The 80,000-square-foot center was built with a $20 million gift from the late Robert Mondavi and has relied on a tiny state-owned bank, Infrastructure and Economic Development Bank, or I-Bank for short, which gave the center a $77 million bailout. Now the small bank is in deep trouble due to the subprime mortgage crisis and is facing an Aug. 11 deadline to come up with cash to back its guarantees. According to the Bee I-Bank authorized the first bond offering for Copia in 1999 for $70 million which backed the construction of the buildings and grounds that include indoor and outdoor kitchens, a demonstration vineyard and organic vegetable gardens, cooking and tasting classrooms and a 240-seat auditorium. Copia is also home to two restaurants and a large gift shop. But many tourists prefer to spend their time at individual wineries rather than at Copia. Since it opened in 2001 it has lost between $4.2 million and $12 million a year and has $14 million deficit, according to the 2007 annual report. Even though I-Bank knew Copia was in deep trouble, it approved Copia's financial rescue in April 2007 and authorized the bond refinancing deal three months later through New York-based securities firm JPMorgan.

The Bee also reports that Copia faced scrutiny over how it was using the space and facilities built with its first round of tax-exempt bond money. An IRS agent found that Copia was using far more than the allowable five percent of its space for business activities putting the center's tax-exempt status in jeopardy.

The article's commenters have some fascinating ideas for Copia, including turning into a museum to honor the late Robert Mondavi . Others argue that is was flawed from the get-go and an unnecessary expense for a region that already has so many wine and food options.

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Tags: copia, mondavi, napa valley

Copia Gets Automated

by Deidre Woollard (RSS feed) —

Filed under: Wine

The Copia center for food and wine and the arts in Napa has a new toy. The center has installed "wine stations" that let visitors do a tasting all by themselves. There are ten stations with four wines each. Six of them will be more educational and four will have a commercial angle. The stations operate on a debit card, the visitor purchases and the tasting and picks out the pour size. You hold your glass under the spigot, press the button and out comes your wine, just like those old coffee machines. The stations include a best of Napa Cabernet Sauvignon, a best of Sonoma Pinot Noir selection, Copia's winery of the month and other stations that let you guess the grape used or taste the effect of oak. I've seen similar stations used in some wine bars but like a self-service checkout, a bit of the charm is lost with the automated approach. However, it does let those new to wine tasting experience it in a more relaxed manner. For pictures of the stations and a list of all ten check out the article in the Napa Valley Register.

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Tags: copia, napa, wine, wine stations, wine tasting