Copia

I've spent little enough time in the Napa area in California despite growing
up nearby, and visiting family on the other side of it, and that little time
was, anyway, mostly before the shift from agricultural to recreational
renown. By 1987 in Napa wine country, "one is treated as a tourist,"
complained David Yee on a Bay Area Internet newsgroup (message
) which I answered that generally one IS a tourist,
so where is the problem?. By 2003 a wine Web-site contributor would cite
offhand "the hordes of tourists just looking to get schnockered on the
weekend" along Highway 29 as justifying winery tasting-room fees. (Both
were uncommon in times now past.)

I was a tourist this weekend, with some friends of whom one was involved a
little in the design of the museum exhibits at the Copia center in Napa
(www.copia.org) and she was eager to show us the place. (Also, it was her
birthday.)

I was pleasantly impressed viewing Copia, and would happily return. The
grounds are serene and relaxing. (One of our group, arriving early, hiked
for an hour on the trails behind the building.) The displays on US food and
wine history, which could so easily have been shallow or commercial,
actually reveal some of the complexities, the bite. Irony is not
overlooked. For example the account of a Mr. Graham, a 19th-century
preacher of the health benefits from whole grains and vegetarianism, giving
the US the idiom "Graham flour" to fine whole-wheat (UK "wholemeal") flour
[1], ends with the unpolished reality that despite his own therapy, Graham
remained sickly all his life and died relatively young.

Classic US cookbooks appear in hands-on facsimile editions, starting with
Eliza Leslie's influential 1837 _Directions for Cookery_ (still regarded by
people who know it as one of the very best US cookbooks written) [2]. The
display on wines does start with an introductory paragraph on wines being
non-mainstream in US habits (labels unfamiliar to many people, sommeliers
and rituals intimidating, etc.) but then the text makes as if to depart from
this picture today, though I believe that many people would still call it
apt. At the end of the exhibits, a visitor-comments display raises
thoughtful and provocative points.

We heard some inside bits about the displays (one of them has 144 forks,
contractor staffers went out for fast food all over to get the wrappers in
the wrapper display, the large wine bottle that serves as a video screen
with selectable labels was technically hard). The building has two floors,
with exhibits upstairs, and meeting and demonstration facilities scattered
around. The large and partly volunteer staff, all of whom seemed
enthusiastic on that day, were preparing for an evening function in the
facility as the museum closed we left.


Ogier Côte-Rôtie

Even with California's wine accomplishments, highlighted at Copia, US
consumers can get wines of many countries and need not limit themselves. So
too with the long wine list in a popular restaurant at dinner in nearby
Yountville (whose chef was especially kind to my friend with the birthday).
As designated wine geek at this dinner, I checked the list and marked
prospects with the wooden clothespins lying around (they had been napkin
holders). As I discussed wines for the meal, the sommelier too was
enthusiastic about the 1995 Ogier Côte-Rôtie. And with reason, we all saw
later. The nose was amazing even for a good Côte-Rôtie. Lush with wild
raspberries, surprisingly Burgundian anise, and complexity. A wine to match
the one in Rouff's _Passionate Epicure_ that "blew into the soul like a good
ocean wind into a sail, all the sunshine it had stolen, all the fervour of
that baked earth of the Rhone Valley, its spiritual mother-country, and
which, in waves of enlaced tannin and raspberry, brought to the brain a
marvellous lucidity." I bought the 1997 of this wine when it was current in
the market; how I wish I'd bought the 95 too. Mark Lipton has long
advocated this producer here on alt.food.wine also.

-- Max Hauser


[1] Among the dialect differences between US and UK English, most are more
important and better known than "Graham cracker" vs. "digestive biscuit" --
the two are not quite equivalent, either -- but few have a longer history
online. An example is currently archived via

http://tinyurl.com/5ejqg


[2] Eliza Leslie's book is readily available today new or used in the Dover
facsimile edition as ISBN 0486406148.

Max Hauser wrote:

> Ogier Côte-Rôtie
>
> Even with California's wine accomplishments, highlighted at Copia, US
> consumers can get wines of many countries and need not limit themselves. So
> too with the long wine list in a popular restaurant at dinner in nearby
> Yountville (whose chef was especially kind to my friend with the birthday).
> As designated wine geek at this dinner, I checked the list and marked
> prospects with the wooden clothespins lying around (they had been napkin
> holders). As I discussed wines for the meal, the sommelier too was
> enthusiastic about the 1995 Ogier Côte-Rôtie. And with reason, we all saw
> later. The nose was amazing even for a good Côte-Rôtie. Lush with wild
> raspberries, surprisingly Burgundian anise, and complexity. A wine to match
> the one in Rouff's _Passionate Epicure_ that "blew into the soul like a good
> ocean wind into a sail, all the sunshine it had stolen, all the fervour of
> that baked earth of the Rhone Valley, its spiritual mother-country, and
> which, in waves of enlaced tannin and raspberry, brought to the brain a
> marvellous lucidity." I bought the 1997 of this wine when it was current in
> the market; how I wish I'd bought the 95 too. Mark Lipton has long
> advocated this producer here on alt.food.wine also.

Nice notes, Max. Given your apparent Burgundian tilt, I am not at all
surprised that you responded well to an Ogier Côte-Rôtie. IMO, the
perfume of a good C-R is one of the closest things to the nose of a good
Burgundy, unless of course you're drinking one of Guigal's quercophilic
single vineyard offerings. In all honesty, one reason for my praise for
Ogier concerns his pricing. I also like the C-R's of a number of other
producers (Gaillard, for instance) but the cost is often prohibitive.

Mark Lipton