NEWS
January 7, 2023 | Anita and Varinder Sahi
Happy New Year, Copia Family!
2022, where did you go!? As we turn the corner and welcome 2023, we think of all that happened in the last year. Starting with a promising growing season and ending with a fast and furious harvest, 2022 was remarkable in its peaks and valleys. The ebb and flow of every year always seems dramatic at its close. With that said, 2022 was truly an incomparable year for all of us at Copia Vineyards! Read on for a few of the highlights and be sure to catch our January blog post: Copia's Love Affair with Cheese.
Club Party + Pre-release of 2020s
Do we love a good party or what?
We enjoyed every minute of getting to meet our members, host an afternoon filled with great food and music all while previewing the 2020 wines.
Each wine was paired with delectable creations from local Chef Alex Martin, followed by a whole roasted suckling pig and a selection of favorites from Jeffry’s Wine Country BBQ.
We met many members in person for the first time and jammed poolside with amazing tunes by The Vibesetters!
Reviews
This year's releases came with Copia’s highest ratings to date! Copia released 9 new wines and received beautiful scores for all of them, topping out with 96 pts for the 2019 Cabernet Sauvignon and the 2019 The Pursuit - Bien Nacido Vineyard. The current vintage also received three Cellar Selection designations from Wine Enthusiast.
We’re proud to share these wines with you and enjoy your impressions as they continue to age in bottle.
Harvest 2022: Fast and Furious
What do you do when:
- 75% of harvest happens in September (a FIRST for many),
- You’re setting up a new crush line at the height of harvest and your cluster conveyor sends grapes flying everywhere, and
- Your hoses are just a little too short and your days are just a little too long?
SMILE AND LAUGH THROUGH IT ALL.
Because, hey, it’s harvest. And harvest is fun.
Hosting You + A Growing Team
We welcomed a record number of guests to experience Copia’s hospitality in the tasting room and at our vineyard guest house. We are already booking up for the first half of 2023 and are excited to keep sharing the Copia story with you.
Our team has grown to include a couple more team members (hats and glasses encouraged, but optional). We share the language of hospitality and are all delighted to offer even more unique tasting experiences and events starting this Spring. Stay tuned!
Jan 7, 2023 at 10:30 AM
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January 7, 2023 | Sarah Boone
Copia's Love Affair with Cheese
If you’ve visited us and experienced our lounge tasting, you’ll know we love to experience our wine with artisanal cheese. Cheese is incredibly delicious and enjoyable on its own, of course. But, there is a reason that wine and cheese are a match made in heaven.
Let's talk tannins! Tannins are an astringent compound abundantly found in nature. When it comes to wine, tannins are extracted from grape skins, seeds, stems and oak barrels. Think texture, structure and mouthfeel. Have you ever had the sensation of a the moisture leaving your palate after enjoying wine? That is the tannin in the wine.
What does this have to do with cheese? Cheese is composed of protein and fat and is rich on the palate. There is an interaction that happens when you combine wine tannins and the fat in cheese. A bite of cheese before a sip of wine smooths out the "rough edges" of some wine tannins. The perception of astringency in wine is reduced as it glides like silk over the palate. Studies have also shown that certain cheeses with certain wines can work to enhance fruit qualities and aromas.
At Copia, we take time as a team sampling several cheeses with each wine before presenting them to you. It’s a hard job, but someone has to do it! Our goal is to always find a cheese match that doesn’t change or overpower the wine. We look for a pairing that puts the wine on a pedestal and simply lets it shine.
We’d love to see you in the tasting room soon and take you on this wine and cheese journey! You can also have fun with pairings at home. Check out your local grocery store, or find a cheese shop near you and get your hands on some of our favorites below.
CURRENT RELEASE
PAIRING RECOMMENDATIONS
2019 The Story (Grenache)
pairs with Ossau-Iraty
2019 The Cure (G-S-M)
pairs with Cave-Aged Gruyere
2019 The Source (Syrah)
pairs with 5-Year Aged Gouda, Artikaas
Jan 7, 2023 at 9:00 AM
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July 4, 2022 | Anita and Varinder Sahi
Tandoori Shrimp | Recipe by Anita and Varinder Sahi
There is nothing quite as satifying as the traditional Indian method of cooking clay vessel called a Tandoor. What results are delectable, tangy morsels of meat and seafood or pillowy naan breads and rotis. Proteins are marinated (usually in yogurt) and cooked quickly at a very high temperature. In this recipe, we show you how to achieve a similar dish using jumbo shrimp and your BBQ grill. While yogurt and shrimp might seem like an unlikely pairing, it has a very specific role in this preparation. The yogurt is not only a great base for all the spices blended into it, but it also cooks down to a light crust on each shrimp when grilled. This is always a crowd pleaser at our dinner parties. We typically serve it as an appetizer, however, add a little basmati rice and you have a marvelous entrée.
Jul 4, 2022 at 10:15 AM
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January 12, 2022 | Anita and Varinder Sahi
Game Meat and Prawn Paella | Recipe by Chef Rachel Ponce
We always love to introduce each new Copia vintage alongside inspired food. The release of our 2019 vintage wines was no different. The theme was tapas and Spanish cuisine and we tasked local Paso Robles wine country Chef Rachel Ponce with coming up with the perfect pairing for each wine. Every bite she created was absolutely delectable, but it was Chef Rachel’s Game Meat and Prawn Paella that became the stuff of Copia legend! She had created a perfectly rich and multilayered dish that paired beautifully with our Source Syrah. It is an unctuous and embarrasingly luxurious one-pan-meal that hides its true elegance in its humble plating. As with everything that Chef Rachel does, she used our wine as the perfect inspiration for a dish that we find ourselves cooking again and again. Enjoy this recipe that is sure to impress anyone you serve it to.
View Recipe
View Recipe
Jan 12, 2022 at 8:59 AM
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October 21, 2021 | Anita Sahi
Fall 2021 | Wine Club Party
What a blast we had with these very special people: Copia Vineyards club members. Your support and passion for our wine allows us to do what we love every day. And just look at all of your flamenco moves 😍 THANK YOU.
Oct 21, 2021 at 1:10 PM
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September 27, 2021 | Anita Sahi
Bordeaux Pick
Today’s pick is Copia Vineyard's estate Cabernet Sauvignon and Petit Verdot! It’s the first of our estate Bordeaux varietals and we’re excited beyond belief.
Sep 27, 2021 at 1:09 PM
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September 9, 2021 | Anita Sahi
Indian Women in Wine Blaze a Trail in California
Local Journalist Mira Advani Honeycutt meets six women of Indian descent who are making a mark in an industry dominated by men. We're honored to have our own Anita Sahi profiled among such a distinguished group of female trailblazers!
Excerpt: "ANITA SAHI, Proprietor/General Manager, Copia Vineyards, Paso Robles
Born and raised in the Chicago area, Anita Kothari was drawn to all things culinary at a young age. From her stints in television and with public relations firms, she transitioned to the restaurant industry working with such luminaries as New ork’s restaurateur Drew Nierporent where her true wine education began, helping her to develop a sophisticated palate. “To be able to orchestrate dinners using a Wine Spectator Grand Award winning wine cellar that is 20,000-plus bottles deep was a privilege,” recalled Anita."
Visit Sommelier India Magazine.
Sep 9, 2021 at 10:30 AM
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September 8, 2021 | Sarah Boone
Estate Syrah
Copia’s First Estate Harvest Ever! Syrah blocks came off the vine today. Culmination of a longtime dream and a lot of hard work.
Sep 8, 2021 at 1:06 PM
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September 7, 2021 | Sarah Boone
The Copia Vineyards 2021 Club Release is Here!
high-stakes
adjective [usually before noun]
used to describe a situation that has a lot of risk and in which
someone is likely to either get or lose an advantage -Cambridge Dictionary
used to describe a situation that has a lot of risk and in which
someone is likely to either get or lose an advantage -Cambridge Dictionary
In the high-stakes game of life, what's a good story without all the twists, turns, highs and lows? I believe we can all call this the spice of life. And when you leave the past behind to go "all in" on your future, it can get very, very spicy.
We started our journey in 2016 as two bright-eyed harvest interns, full of different life experiences outside of winemaking and are now the stewards of a beautiful vineyard estate all our own. When you have a full life filled with professional successes, why begin anew? Why gather all of your chips in front of you and push them into the future? In the quiet of twilight at the Copia Estate Vineyard, Varinder and I occasionally get a moment to reflect on this very question.
We two, self-proclaimed wine mavericks, are now in our third leaf at the vineyard, working our sixth harvest together and releasing our fourth vintage of Copia wine to you. The journey is beautifully tricky, unexpected at times and food for our passion. If you want to accomplish anything in life, we tell ourselves, it will naturally take sacrifice and undying focus. Copia is our baby and in those early days, before there was a tasting room or a team member, Varinder and I picked up the phone, pounded the pavement and sent out emails to one and all. For us, succeeding in our dream of creating premium, small-lot wine is an actively chosen, all-consuming one. Quite simply, the answer to our question of "Why do this?" is that the risk is worth the reward.
Part of that reward is being able to share the next release of Copia wines with you, our treasured club members, before anyone else. With great pride, it's time for us to reveal the 2019 reds and our 2020 white and rosé! The 2019 vintage is made with the ingredients of more experience, brilliant fruit sources (including 9 different Syrah sites) and a gentle growing season allowing for longer hang time on the vine. There was a beautiful balance between sugar and acid at pick time, which was a couple of weeks later than the previous vintage. Mother nature spared us any major curve balls, the conditions were near perfect and the grapes were positively singing. What results are wines of concentration, rich color and complexity. Many are saying that this is one of Paso Robles' finest vintages to date and we would agree.
Classic members will be receiving a shipment of 6 bottles and Premium members will be receiving a shipment of 12 bottles - all detailed below.
The Copia story continues and we will always remember sharing it with you, one-by-one. As always, you have our eternal gratitude for your enthusiastic support of Copia wines.
Cheers to going "all in" on life,
Anita and Varinder Sahi and the Entire Copia Vineyards Team
Anita and Varinder Sahi and the Entire Copia Vineyards Team
IMPORTANT DATES
SEPT 24: WINE SELECTION CLOSES. This is the last day to make any changes to your account, including; wine selection, billing information, shipping address or shipping date.
SEPT 28: YOUR ORDER WILL PROCESS. The card we have on file will be charged.
OCT 9: COPIA CLUB PICK UP PARTY (RSVP necessary).
OCT 10: YOUR ORDER IS READY FOR PICK UP AT TASTING ROOM (pick-up members only; during business hours).
OCT 11: YOUR ORDER WILL SHIP (ship-to members only; weather permitting). By default we ship via UPS Ground, if you prefer GSO or Fedex, please email and let us know.
SHIPMENT DETAILS
CLASSIC CLUB
2020 White
2020 Rosé
2019 The Story
2019 The Cure x2
2019 The Source
2020 Rosé
2019 The Story
2019 The Cure x2
2019 The Source
$244
before taxes and shipping
before taxes and shipping
PREMIUM CLUB
2020 White x2
2020 Rosé x2
2019 The Story x3
2019 The Cure x3
2019 The Source x2
2020 Rosé x2
2019 The Story x3
2019 The Cure x3
2019 The Source x2
$427
before taxes and shipping
before taxes and shipping
We are happy to accomodate customizations and requests. If you would like to request changes to the winemaker's selection above, change your billing/shipping address, shipping type or date; please do so via written request before the end of Friday, September 24th.
THE WINE
2020 WHITE | 45% CHARDONNAY, 35% ROUSSANNE, 20% VIOGNIER
Fermented & aged in 40% new French oak
Central Coast
Vineyards: John Sebastiano Vineyard, Caliza & Denner Vineyards
Classic | $36 Premium | $31.50
2020 ROSÉ | 73% GRENACHE, 25% SYRAH, 2% MOURVÈDRE
Fermented & aged in stainless steel
Central Coast
Classic | $24 Premium | $21
2019 THE STORY | 92% GRENACHE, 8% SYRAH
Aged 20 months in 50% new French oak
Central Coast
Vineyards: Denner Vineyards, Alta Colina, Christy & Wise, Jespersen Ranch
Classic | $44 Premium | $38.50
2019 THE CURE | 45% SYRAH, 29% GRENACHE, 26% MOURVÈDRE
Aged 20 months in 45% new French oak
Central Coast
Vineyards: Denner Vineyards, Alta Colina, Live Oak Ranch, Jespersen Ranch, John Sebastiano, Kimsey
Classic | $44 Premium | $38.50
2019 THE SOURCE | 93% SYRAH, 7% GRENACHE
Aged 20 months in 75% new French oak
Central Coast
Vineyards: Kimsey, John Sebastiano, Bien Nacido, Alta Colina, Live Oak Ranch, Denner Vineyards
Classic | $52 Premium | $45.50
Sep 7, 2021 at 9:06 AM
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