Sure, we have over 60,000 acres of vineyards, more than 264 wineries open to the public and more Michelin-rated restaurants than you can shake a stick at.
But a lot of people don’t know that Sonoma Wine Country is also the Sonoma Ocean Country – the 50 miles of Pacific Ocean coastline not only moderates the weather and provides fog for redwood forests, it is also home to great sea life like whales, dungeness crab, dolphins and salmon.
Wineries like Quivira in Healdsburg work hard to enact “fish-friendly” farming practices to protect the little guys and encourage them to return to the small creeks where they spawn. (Quivira is even the official winery of Trout Unlimited. Unclear if rainbows drink more than brown or lake trout, but I’m all for it nonetheless.)
According to the Sonoma County Water Agency, the first Chinook Salmon were noted coming up the river on October 9.
Below is a neat video taken in the Russian River of some chinook coming “home.”
Welcome back guys!
