For planners looking at ways to infuse a wine-themed activity or event location into a meetings program, the options have never been so rich and varied. Wineries, along with wine-focused venues and excursions, are raising the bar on ways to provide groups with life-enhancing knowledge and experiences to remember.
CIA at Copia
www.ciaatcopia.com
Copia, the long-shuttered food and wine education center on the Napa River, reopened its doors in February under new ownership by the Culinary Institute of America. The landmark venue created by legendary vintner Robert Mondavi with support from Julia Child closed in 2008 despite years of playing a pivotal role in the revitalization of downtown Napa.
Now called CIA at Copia, the reimagined 80,000-square-foot venue is again up and running, offering daily cooking and wine-themed classes, a tasting showcase for local wineries on a rotation basis, a restaurant and numerous areas for private events. Coming later this year will be the Chuck Williams Culinary Museum, built to honor the late founder of Williams-Sonoma, and the Wine Hall of Fame. Both will feature interactive exhibits on the history of gastronomy in America. Another upcoming addition to Copia will be the Reserve Tasting Salon, where guests can sample rare and little-known wines from around the world.
“It’s been a really great experience bringing Copia back to life—we’re taking the original vision and building on it,” said Amy Thomason-Richardson, director of event sales for CIA California. “We’re offering a lot of different possibilities for groups. There’s not a spot in the building that can’t be used for events.”
Event spaces include a new 600-seat outdoor amphitheater overlooking the river and equipped for audiovisual presentations, a 226-seat indoor theater, demonstration kitchens, an atrium area for receptions, seminar rooms and private dining rooms.
“Anything we offer can be customized for groups, including hands-on cooking classes or interactive receptions where the chef makes hors d’oeuvres right in front of you,” Thomason-Richardson said. “Wine education is also emphasized. We can build a wine component into any program. One option that groups can do is a wine class here prior to going out to the local wineries. It’s a great way to start a visit to the area.”
Hall Wines St. Helena
www.hallwines.com
One of the most ambitious and event-focused winery expansions in Napa Valley in recent years debuted at Hall Wines St. Helena in 2014. The vision of Kathryn Hall, a former U.S. ambassador to Austria, and Craig Hall, a venture capitalist, the winery features artworks from the couple’s private collection, outdoor “garden rooms” and a culinary demonstration center.
Its signature event space is the historic Bergfeld Winery, an 1885 stone structure where many early Napa vintages were once produced. The renovated building offers areas such as Peterson’s Loft, with vineyard and mountain views, and the Bergfeld Founders’ Cellar, which features a long table crafted to resemble a solid log, wine barrels and a hand-blown Murano glass chandelier. Other event spaces include the Great Lawn, a spacious area adjoining the Bergfeld Winery, and the Olive Grove, a garden with dramatic wicker art installations by Patrick Dougherty.
The winery’s new glass-walled Visitors Center, which features a central demonstration kitchen with cameras and flat-screen monitors, is another popular area for groups, according to Myriah Mutrix, private experiences manager for Hall Wines.
“We can do hands-on cooking classes for smaller groups,” she said. “For larger groups or for those who don’t want to cook, we can have the chef do a demonstration and give people the recipes to take home.”
Other customized experiences can include teambuilding activities with bocce ball and other games or pizza making at the outdoor pizza oven. For wine-savvy groups, a popular option is the Ultimate Cabernet Experience, which features the chance to sample the winery’s highest-end cabernets not normally available for tasting.
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Wine Country Walking Tours
www.winecountrywalkingtours.com
With its charming and compact downtown filled with dozens of wine bars, tasting rooms, specialty food purveyors and acclaimed restaurants, Healdsburg, Calif., is a microcosm of the many food and wine experiences available in Sonoma County. Wine Country Walking Tours offers customized opportunities for groups to enjoy many of these within just a few hours.
“We can start off at a local restaurant with a wine tasting or wine blending class and we can bring in winemakers to talk about their wines and chefs to talk about sustainable farming,” said co-owner Kirsten Jones. “We can visit art galleries and do a food and wine pairing at a tasting room. We like to focus on things that people can take away with them—understanding the relationship between food and wine and how to enjoy wine country entertaining in their own homes.”
The tours, which can range from a couple of hours on up to a full day, can include lunch and a cooking class at Relish, a local cooking school, or a visit to a floral shop where participants learn to make their own flower arrangements and centerpieces. Another option is a teambuilding challenge where participants do a wine tasting while blindfolded.
“The blind tasting is a real hoot and a great icebreaker for people who may have come in from around the country and don’t know each other well,” Jones said. “People start tasting the wine and jot down their impressions. They learn how sight impacts the taste buds. There are prizes for those who correctly identify the correct type of wine.”
Halter Ranch Vineyard
www.halterranch.com
While Halter Ranch Vineyard has been part of the burgeoning wine scene in Paso Robles, Calif., since 2000, it’s only been in the past year that the property, which has a new winery and tasting room, launched services for corporate events. The hillside winery with its covered bridge and Victorian farmhouse offers event spaces that include a silo barn with a patio, wet bar and room for up to 175 people, as well as a rustic barn accommodating up to 200.
“Everything we do is customizable for groups, including a vineyard hike in combination with a private wine tasting,” said Kendall Carson, event manager at the vineyard. “We can do wine blending seminars and catered dinners and lunches.”
Halter Ranch’s foray into corporate events has been given a boost by the recent opening of the nearby Allegretto Vineyard Resort, a 171-room luxury property with a full-service spa and extensive indoor and outdoor function space.
“Allegretto is a great feeder market for us as they are heavily pursuing corporate meetings,” Carson said. “We work with them when a group requests an off-site wine experience.”
Holman Ranch
www.holmanranch.com
Spread over 400 acres of rolling hills in Carmel Valley, Calif., Holman Ranch is a multifaceted property that includes a winery, vineyards, an olive grove, extensive gardens, 10 charming cottages and a stone hacienda that was once a private club frequented by Charlie Chaplin and other Hollywood luminaries. Its event spaces also include a historic carriage house and a games area where groups can play billiards, darts, horseshoes and lawn dominoes, or enjoy a classic film screening.
“We are one of the few places in the area that has a winery, vineyards and event venues all in one place,” said Hunter Lawlor, director of hospitality. “Our winery is also unique—it’s a cave dug into the hillside that stays the same temperature year-round.”
Among the many offerings at Holman Ranch are ATV tours of the vineyards that include a stop at the wine cave for a wine and cheese pairing or a barrel tasting. Catered lunches and dinners can be held throughout the grounds or in the historic hacienda building. Tastings of the olive oil produced on the property are also available.
Holman Ranch also offers corporate retreats for groups of up to 20 people, who can stay in the 1940s cottages decorated with Western-style furnishings and artwork.
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Sokol Blosser Winery
www.sokolblosser.com
A pioneer in Oregon’s now thriving wine industry and one of the first to embrace organic and sustainable practices, Sokol Blosser Winery in Dayton recently opened a stunning tasting room with views of the Dundee Hills and Willamette Valley outside of Portland. In addition to its main room overlooking the vineyards, the tasting room offers an expansive deck, and small meeting rooms. It also has a kitchen with a communal table where guests can participate in cooking demonstrations, wine-pairing dinners and other culinary events led by chef Henry Kibit.
“Our chef is involved in a lot of activities for groups, including foraging hikes where you search for seasonal ingredients such as wild nettles, ginger and morel mushrooms that will be used in a lunch preparation,” said Jessica Hage, the winery’s event manager.
Event spaces at the winery also include picnic areas among the vineyards and the John Storrs Tasting Room, which was the first purpose-built tasting room in Oregon when it opened in 1978. It has an adjoining deck, lawn and courtyard. The winery’s LEED-certified barrel cellar is also used for events, including parties with a 1920s-speakeasy theme.
Along with wine tasting sessions and blending seminars, Sokol Blosser also offers vineyard hikes that focus on its sustainability efforts as well as its history dating from the 1970s when the Sokol Blosser family was among the first in the state to engage in pinot noir production.
“Our hikes include walks through the vineyards where you can see our owl boxes—homes for barn owls are a pet project here—as well as our beehives,” Hage said.
Sustainable Wine Vine Tours
www.sustainablewinevinetours.com
Santa Barbara County, Calif.’s family-owned wineries devoted to small production and sustainability are the focus of this tour company, which offers excursions for small groups in all-electric Tesla SUVs or diesel-fueled Mercedes passenger vans. Stops are made at wineries not normally open to the public, and the tasting sessions and vineyard tours are often conducted by the winemakers themselves. A gourmet picnic lunch is included during the tours.
“We try to educate people about the process of making organic wine, how it’s different from the usual wine-making process and why it benefits the environment,” said Bryan Hope, owner of the company.
Okanagan Wine and Orchard Museum
www.kelownamusems.ca
British Columbia’s Okanagan Valley, the second-largest wine region in Canada, has a long and storied wine-making tradition that dates back to the 1850s. Equally important to the region is its long history of orchard farming, a thriving industry where the fruit was processed through busy packing houses that lined the streets of downtown Kelowna in the early 20th century.
A survivor from this era, the Laurel Packinghouse is both an event venue and home to the Okanagan Wine and Orchard Museum, featuring exhibits on early winemaking and the stories behind many of the region’s signature wineries. The atmospheric brick and beam packinghouse accommodates up to 300 people for a reception and up to 275 for seated dinner events.
