The setting, in the heart of California's wine country on the majestic Oxbow of the Napa River, integrates galleries and lecture hall rooms, a theater and concert terrace, kitchens and vineyards, libraries and gardens.

The center is named after Copia, the Roman goddess of abundance. Compelling, educational programs, exhibitions and events on viticulture and the culinary arts complemented literature, theater, music, art, drama and dance performances and exhibits-all reflecting, and enlarging, the context of the arts of American wine, food, and history.

Copia's two-story, stone, metal, glass and polished concrete building, with an undulating roof that mimics the hills to the east and a design inspired by the 16th-century kitchen gardens at Villandry in France's Loire Valley, was created by Polshek Partnership Architects of New York. They also designed the Cantor Center for Visual Arts at Stanford University and the proposed William Jefferson Clinton Presidential Library in Little Rock, Arkansas.

Also included is 13,000-square-feet of gallery space, organic gardens and vineyards, a 280-seat theater for films and lecture hall purposes, a rare books library, an 80-seat demonstration kitchen and a 500-seat outdoor concert terrace.

The gardens had a wood-fire oven, nut grove, herb garden, lavender collection from all over the world, a seed-saving garden to help preserve rare and historic botanicals, and a cultural garden spotlighting Native American, Chinese-American, Japanese-American and Hispanic ingredients. Additionally, there are both red and white wine gardens - each planted with things that represent the flavors and aromas found in wine - cherries, tobacco and violets for red wines; apples, lemon and melon for white wines.