New York, Oct 2 - The site housing Copia, the failed Napa, California wine and food center backed by the late winemaker Robert Mondavi, has been put up for sale.
A real estate unit of the restructuring firm Alvarez & Marsal said the sale would be conducted under Copia's liquidation plan, which has won creditor approval and awaits final approval by a California bankruptcy court.
Mondavi, a passionate vintner who is credited with helping establish California wines as among the world's best, died in May 2008. He poured millions of dollars into Copia, a non-profit intended to help educate people on the relationship between wine, food and American culture.
Copia filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy Dec. 1, burdened by debt.
The property, situated on more than 17 acres along the Napa River, has a 78,632 square foot main building with space for a restaurant, offices, a theater, classrooms.
Copia once held the French copper pots and pans that Julia Child used in her Cambridge, Massachusetts kitchen. Child, who introduced Americans to French cooking and is the inspiration of the film "Julie & Julia," co-founded the American Institute of Wine and Food with Mondavi.
Her kitchen is now in Smithsonian's National Museum of American History in Washington, D.C.; the pots and pans moved there in July.
Alvarez said it was hired by ACA Financial Guaranty Corp, an insurer of Copia's bonds, to sell the property, with proceeds going to the bondholders. It said it plans to sell or lease the property as a whole or in pieces.
The bankruptcy case is In re Copia: The American Center for Wine, Food and the Arts, U.S. Bankruptcy Court, Northern District of California (Santa Rosa), No. 08-12576.