Robert Mondavi, now-88-year-old
wine baron, son of Sicilian sharecroppers,has
spent nearly $30 million on the nation's first
major museum devoted exclusively
to "sustenance", in all its variations.
"Copia" is housed in a sweeping structure designed
by James Polshek, the
architect who is doing the Clinton Presidential
Center in Arkansas, has
high-powered trustees and partners, and will
be considered a major
educational institution.
Thirteen years in the making, the 80,000-square-foot,nonprofit
center is
intended to examine the role of wine and food
in art and society. Named for
the Roman goddess of abundance.
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A MONUMENT TO THE GOOD LIFE
IN NAPA
Culture: Center for food, wine and arts has lofty goals,
but some locals are less than thrilled.
Los Angeles Times
By Shawn Hubler and Melinda Fulmer
Times Staff Writers
November 17 2001
NAPA, Calif. -- It is the talk of the wine country, the new new thing
in the
Napa Valley, the buzz of sophisticates even in this season of insecurity.
Its
opening on Sunday will feature everyone from Julia Child to the Pillsbury
Doughboy. Its modernist building will house gourmet restaurants and
exhibitions on starvation. Its gardens will be curated by the organic
farmer
who did Steve Jobs' estate in Silicon Valley. Robert Mondavi, the wine
baron,
has spent nearly $30 million coaxing it into fruition.
Copia: The American Center for Food, Wine & the Arts will be the
nation's
first major museum devoted exclusively to sustenance, in all its variations.
What that means isn't exactly clear.
Not everyone here gets it yet, and its backers have been accused of
elitism.
Scholars, foodies and others are hailing its opening as a benchmark
in
America's appreciation of the art of living well. "It's, uh, unique,"
Mayor
Ed Henderson said with a laugh, fresh from a preview of the
corrugated-metal-and-glass center, which looks like a cross between
an
agricultural lab and a swank warehouse. "Is it pretty? I don't know.
It's
different. I sound like a mayor, don't I? Tell you what--come see for
yourself."
Thirteen years in the making, the 80,000-square-foot, $55-million nonprofit
center is intended to examine the role of wine and food in art and
society.
Named for the Roman goddess of abundance, it is part gallery, part
fun house,
part cooking school and part haute cuisine food court.
Initially modest in scope, it was conceived by the now-88-year-old Mondavi
as
a way to raise his region's international wine industry profile. Over
time,
its mission greatly expanded to include food-related art and movies,
outdoor
concert-picnics, a rare cookbook collection, cooking classes, wine
tastings,
heirloom seed collections, state-of-the-art kitchens and more.
Visitors will find diversions as disparate as an installation on genetically
altered "Frankenfoods" and a display of 16th century decanters. They
can dine
at Julia's Kitchen, a restaurant named after Child, or hear a lecture
on,
say, Oregon wines or Mexican cheeses.
Its high-powered trustees and partners range from UC Davis and Cornell
University deans to several large wineries and the publisher of Wine
Spectator magazine. Child, Martha Stewart and Berkeley's Alice Waters,
doyennes of American food culture, have honorary board seats. The resume
of
its director, Peggy Loar, includes a nine-year management stint at
the
Smithsonian Institution.
"I can think of small places like this in, say, Europe, devoted to single
subjects, but this is a major educational institution," said Barbara
Haber, a
food historian and curator of books at Harvard University's Radcliffe
Institute for Advanced Studies. "This is going to be a point of destination,
and far more high-minded than people might presume."
Though a museum devoted exclusively to food and wine has been talked
about
for years, Haber said, it has taken until now for Americans to get
past the
notion that mere sustenance was too trivial for serious study. Chefs
are now
celebrities, wine columnists grace the lifestyle sections of the most
middlebrow newspapers and universities offer doctorates in food history.
"This is throwing down the gauntlet and saying that food and drink is
a
serious subject, and that California is the citadel of this aspect
of our
culture," says Gourmet magazine Editor in Chief Ruth Reichl, who has
also
served as restaurant critic for the New York Times and the Los Angeles
Times.
"Thirty years ago, American wine was a joke and when you said 'American
food,' people thought hamburgers."
In the community of Napa, the response has been more complex, fraught
with
yearning and some class envy. Though the city's name resonates with
the good
life, Napa proper, a faded river town of about 70,000, is a world apart
from
the verdant paradise where the socialities summer and tourists play.
Though Napa may be the valley's namesake, it has become--how to phrase
it?--the place where the help lives. The shipyards and steel mills
that were
once its backbone disappeared in the 1980s, replaced by low-paying
jobs
catering to the visitors "Up Valley."
Its main claim to fame has been the blighted and flood-prone Napa River.
Copia now overlooks that river just on the edge of downtown.
To some here, the budding gardens and undulating edifice are mainly
about
money. Copia is the first phase in a downtown overhaul that promises--or
threatens--to change the character of the city at the behest of a rich
man
who doesn't even live there, some critics say.
The interest of Mondavi (who lives in Oakville, about 12 miles away),
along
with a county-approved tax hike in 1998 to pay for a $230-million flood
control project, have already pulled in new business and investment.
Economic
Development Director Cassandra Walker says that, including Copia, nearly
$130
million in new private investment has flowed in since 1999. "People
are
buying property, doing historic renovations," she said. Francis Ford
Coppola
is renovating a historic movie theater and the downtown now has at
least
three well-reviewed, high-end restaurants.
But some old-timers are mourning.
"The wine culture is snob culture," complained Harry Martin, a city
councilman and publisher of a local weekly newspaper. Napa, on the
other
hand, has a chronic housing shortage, below-average incomes and more
than
half of the county's residents.
"Thirty-three percent of our population is Hispanic, 30% are seniors
living
in mobile home parks, 40% of us are renters. People are breaking their
backs
here to make a living, just for minimum-wage jobs that will leave them
priced
out of the market."
Martin says that Mondavi's projects--which include a Mondavi-financed
art
school and an opera house that will be named after Mondavi's wife,
Margrit--have been a short-term drain on the city, siphoning off funds
for
street improvements and sidewalk repairs.
"This has eaten away at city money that could go to our neighborhoods,
just
so tourists can come up here and learn how to make creme de la poo-poo,"
says
Martin. "It's just Robert Mondavi's monument to Robert Mondavi."
Not surprisingly, Mondavi takes issue. Mondavi has spent his life in
Napa
Valley, he says, and he simply wants to give back. The balding son
of
Sicilian sharecroppers built one winery in his youth with his brother
and
another alone in his middle age after a fierce public feud with his
family.
Earlier this year, he and his wife gave a $35-million gift to UC Davis
to
establish an institute for food and wine science and a performing arts
center, both bearing his name. His efforts in Napa are similarly
philanthropic, he says, born of concern for his region.
"People in Europe and Asia look at us as Johnny-come-latelys," said
the
vintner. "I wanted to let the world know we're more cultured than we're
perceived to be."
Copia and its ripple effect on Napa's economy, he and others say, will
help
residents help themselves in the long term. Kurt Nystrom, Copia's deputy
director for finance and operations, estimates the center will pump
more than
$20 million a year in salaries, contracts and secondary business into
the
local economy. Most of the center's 60 or so employees live in Napa,
Nystrom
said.
"To evolve, we have to do these improvements," Mondavi said. "It's not
going
to be an elitist thing. We hope to work in harmony with the city."
His Copia, housed in a sweeping structure designed by James Polshek,
the
architect who is doing the Clinton Presidential Center in Arkansas,
is
surrounded by the river on three sides.
>From its tall glass windows, visitors can gaze across the banks toward
a
leafy nature preserve. From its curb, they will enter through 3 1/2
acres of
edible organic gardens. Most plants are seedlings and saplings now,
but
they'll eventually include olive and nut groves and beds for the preservation
of rare botanicals, a specialty of the curator of gardens, Jeff Dawson.
Inside, guests can sample wines, take classes or stroll through art
installations. Concerts are planned for the 500-seat outdoor amphitheater,
and art films will be shown in the 280-seat theater. Chefs will lecture
in
the 80-seat demonstration kitchen. A standing exhibition, "Forks in
the
Road," will explore food history, issues and kitsch. Art installations
by
eight international contemporary artists will explore food production
and
consumption, including a stunning tile floor by Los Angeles artist
Jorge
Pardo.
Some 300,000 guests a year are expected. The wines featured in tastings
and
classes will come from across the country, not just California, and
bottles
for sale in the gift shop won't include Mondavi's, or any from Napa,
so as
not to compete with the wineries.
Last Sunday, the place was still raucous with last-minute hammering
and
drilling. In Julia's Kitchen, a roomful of local merchants munched
blissfully
at a free preview meal. "Oh. My. Goodness!" moaned Traci Gee, a local
businesswoman. "I just had the pan-seared shrimp and the steamed black
sea
bass and--oh, my, goodness."
When the doors open this weekend, Mondavi and Child will lead Copia's
opening
parade through the streets of Napa with such disparate epicurean icons
as the
Oscar Mayer Wienermobile, the Anheuser-Busch Clydesdales, the Doughboy
and
dancing grapes--of the chardonnay and cabernet variety, naturally.
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