The Culinary Institute of America offers wine and food classes at its campus in the historic Greystone building in St. Helena. What an adventure to combine a trip to the wine country with a wine or a cooking class. If nothing else, a traveler to the Napa Valley should wander in on this lovely historic building that was once the winery and monastery of the Christian Brothers.

Besides food and wine classes, there is a first class restaurant, the Wine Spectator Restaurant. The Campus Store is loaded with gourmet items and a great selection of books on food and wine. One can browse the barrel room, take a tour, or just walk around and view the old stone winery building that was built in 1889. This building is one of the most beautiful landmarks in the Napa Valley.

The CIA courses are aimed at the person who is in the food and wine industry or those seeking a career in this area. There are plenty of introductory courses that anyone who wants to develop and improve their knowledge of food and wine can take. Check CIA Web site for their “Enthusiast” line of classes.

In checking the CIA calendar at Greystone, we see that Robert Parker is scheduled for a Pinot Noir seminar and tasting in October. The cost is $500 per person and limited to 100 guests.

Copia offers the visitor many opportunities to learn about wine. We visited Copia when it first opened five years ago. Frankly, we were not that impressed. The price of Admission was $12 each and there were few exhibits that really “caught our eye.” We recently returned and had a much better experience. The first thing we noticed on this visit were the informative wine exhibits stationed around the halls. There was also the Wine Spectator wine bar that highlights a different varietal or region of the wine world each week or month. They provide good tasting notes and the host is quite knowledge and willing to share information. Copia has several food and wine classes scheduled each week. The main purpose for our visit was to take a two-hour class on Spanish wines.

For the entire month of March of this year, Spain was the theme at Copia.

The Spanish wine class was $32 per person and this included admission to Copia, which is now a more reasonable $5. The class was well taught. Burke Owens, our instructor and a wine director at Copia, provided us with practical information on the wines of Spain. The handout was informative and contained tasting notes to accompany the six Spanish wines we sampled. We were also presented with appetizers prepared for each of the wines served. All in all, it was a good experience and we learned a great about the wines of Spain.

The Copia website can give you full details of their scheduled their events. They also have an email list that alerts subscribers to coming major events at Copia.

What seems “hot�? right now is an interest in taking wine classes or participating in activities centered on wine education. We have noticed a recent increase in emails from visitors to our Wine Country Getaways Web site requesting information on how and where they can learn about wine. We thought it to be a worthy Blog topic and so here is the first of a few articles on learning about wine. These are based on our own experiences in the Napa Valley.

Our first recommendation is going wine tasting! The more wine you taste, the more opportunity to train your brain for recognition of wine types, wine characteristics, and the quality of the wine.

One of the easiest things to do when your wine taste is to work with the tasting notes provided by the tasting room. Most tasting rooms have them available, but sometimes you have to ask. Add your own comments to the tasting notes. Note the color, the aroma, and the taste. Be descriptive in your own words. Even if you cannot recognize any specific smells or tastes, try and describe what your senses are telling you. Finally, rate your impression of the wine, in other words, how well you like it.

It is always helpful to take a wine tour. The best kind is one that ends with a private tasting. Any time you can taste wines in individual wines glasses and have a chance to compare and contrast the differences in each wine, the more you will learn. When you visit the Napa Valley, try and schedule a tour and tasting of this type. Here are a couple of our recommendations in the Napa Valley.

Chateau Montelena has a tour for $25 per person which includes at walk in the vineyards and a private tasting.

Peju Province Winery has a food and wine pairing sessions Monday to Friday, at 11:30 am and 1:30 pm for $40 a person. Call to reserve a spot.

Watch for our next post on this subject when we discuss Copia, the American Center for Food & Wine.