Before Sonoma was Known: An Interview with Chef John Ash

Published in Sommelier Journal in December 2009

Chef John Ash has come to stand for many things. Known as the founder of wine-country cuisine, he began pairing food and wine in the early 1980s at his Santa Rosa restaurant, John Ash & Co. He was one of the first advocates of eating locally and seasonally. Growing up on a ranch in Colorado with his grandparents, he experienced the practice out of necessity. When Ash left an advertising and product-development job with Del Monte in California in 1976 to attend culinary school in France, he discovered the same philosophy in the daily markets. That experience made him aware of the irony of eating canned vegetables in the middle of summer while surrounded by Sonoma’s agricultural bounty.

Ash had been employing his bachelor’s degree in art from Arizona State University as a freelance medical illustrator and his culinary experience as a part-time caterer when he partnered with Don Baumhefner and Merry Edwards to open a restaurant called Russian River Vineyards in the late 1970s. John Ash & Co., which remains a destination for wine-country diners today, was born in 1980.

Ash has gone on to many other endeavors. His first book, American Game Cooking (Aris Books, 1991), was a contemporary look at heritage American foods; From the Earth to the Table: John Ash’s Wine Country Cuisine was named the Julia Child Cookbook of the Year by the International Association of Culinary Professionals when it was first released in 1995 (a revised and expanded edition was published by Chronicle Books in 2007); and John Ash Cooking One On One: Private Lessons in Simple, Contemporary Food from a Master Teacher (Clarkson Potter, 2004) won a 2005 James Beard Foundation Award.

Ash has co-hosted a Sonoma radio program, “The Good Food Hour,” with Steve Garner every Saturday since 1987. An occasional contributor to various newspapers and magazines, he has also been featured on the Food Network. He was the culinary director for Fetzer and Bonterra vineyards and is still on the faculty of the Culinary Institute of America at Greystone in St. Helena, Calif. He is often on the road as well, speaking to various groups and teaching both home and professional cooks.

His latest venture is Sauvignon Republic, a winemaking operation dedicated to revealing terroir through Sauvignon Blancs from different corners of the globe. Ash has three partners—John Buechsenstein, Paul Dolan, and Tom Meyer—each a food-and-wine force in his own right. Their first release, in 2003, was from Russian River Valley; next was Marlborough, New Zealand, in 2004, followed by Stellenbosch, South Africa, in 2005. Potter Valley from Mendocino, Calif., was added in 2007.

Ash is passionate about Sauvignon Blanc, but it was a Charles Krug Chenin Blanc, consumed with a simple summer lunch at a friend’s house, that first inspired him to explore the world of wine. His career has been devoted to sharing that same experience of great food, great wine, and great company—all enhanced by proximity and context. We met at Bistro 29, a little restaurant in downtown Santa Rosa, where the owner came out and greeted him. We shared a flatbread crêpe and some hot tea and talked in a corner near a window, over the din of a party that came in for a late lunch.

Excerpted from Sommelier Journal