Here’s a good reason to go to New York, althought you’ll have to wait until next summer. It’s the New York Wine & Culinary Center. Actually it would be a long way for a Missouri boy to go to get a good bottle of wine and learn how to fix a meal that will complement it. If I need to do that, it’s only about 2 blocks to Summit Lake Winery.

The board of directors of the highly anticipated, $7.5 million New York Wine & Culinary Center (NYWCC) has named Alexa Gifford as its Executive Director. Gifford joins the not-for- profit organization after more than five years with the Finger Lakes Tourism Alliance, most recently as the organization’s president. Under the direction of the NYWCC’s board of directors, Gifford will manage the Center’s operations and lead a staff of full- and part-time personnel.

The New York Wine & Culinary Center, a gateway to New York State food, wine, and agriculture, will open in Summer 2006 at 800 South Main Street in Canandaigua, N.Y. Constellation Brands, Inc., Wegmans, Rochester Institute of Technology, and the New York Wine & Grape Foundation partnered to establish the not-for-profit organization, which will be housed in the new 19,475 square-foot facility.