My Beloved Sonoma County

    These days, Sonoma County is known as wine country and food writers from all over the world descend upon it, some gleaning stories of their discovery, others adopting this place as their home.  I have lived here most of my life and the only thing that surprises me about our discovery is how long it took.  I thought it would happen long before it did.

    When my first book, A Cook’s Tour of Sonoma, was published in 1990, I believed it was happening then.  When an article I wrote for the Sonoma County Independent, “Sonoma and Provence,” about the resonance between the two regions, was translated into French and I was invited to spearhead a sister region declaration, I thought it was happening then. 

When The New Cook’s Tour of Sonoma was published in 2000, I was certain we had reached a watershed moment. Yet Sonoma County has remained in Napa’s shadow until quite recently.

    Finally, for better and for worse, we stand on our own, recognized as one of the world’s richest and most abundant agricultural regions.  With our diverse microclimates, a long stretch of Pacific coastline and six major valleys--Sonoma, Alexander, Dry Creek, Russian River, Knights’ and Two Rock--farmers and ranchers can raise almost anything here.  And they do. 

    Our restaurants hold their own with any in the Bay Area and thus the country and our wines are among the finest in the world.  Several of our farmers markets operate year round and we have nearly a dozen CSA programs, including a pilot meat-buying club operated by the University of California Cooperative Extension.  All of this is documented over and over again, in newspaper and magazine articles, books, radio programs and television programs.

    Of course, our discovery is really a rediscovery, a remembering.  Luther Burbank brought the world’s attention to Sonoma County more than a century ago, though several factors--phylloxera, two world wars, Prohibition and the Great Depression--turned attention elsewhere.  Since Luther Burbank died, Sonoma County has not had a single advocate with a voice on the world stage. Robert Mondavi did such an extraordinary job promoting Napa County wines that Sonoma County was all but lost in the rush to our eastern neighbor.  Napa is all that Mondavi and others have said it is, yet Sonoma County is even more, a difference explained by geography.  Sonoma is wild and diverse, while Napa is discrete and focused.  I know Sonoma County as well as anyone and I am still uncovering hidden treasures.

    Everyone wants a Sonoma County experience.  Here, I offer some of mine.