Culinary Journey Brings Sonoma Food, Wine to L.A. : Marketing: Representatives of 30 food firms, 20 wineries converge at Biltmore Hotel to promote their products.

Elements of Sonoma County’s burgeoning wine and food industries converged on Los Angeles recently to promote their products in a manner not normally employed: in tandem.

The Northern California county has a rich agricultural heritage that includes a thriving specialty food business as well as a broad spectrum of wineries, but the two have rarely combined forces outside Sonoma to celebrate this compatibility.

They were joined at the two-day gathering entitled, “Sonoma Style: A Culinary Journey Through Its Farms and Vineyards.” The event, which included seminars, tastings and a gala dinner, was sponsored by the Biltmore Hotel.

Representatives of the 30 food firms and 20 wineries present seemed a bit embarrassed that it required a downtown Los Angeles hotel to bring their highly complimentary products together. But they enjoyed the brief marriage, nonetheless, which was highlighted by special meal presentations by several Sonoma-area chefs that combined the two categories.

Sonoma County, its proponents say, is differentiated from its famous neighbor to the east--Napa--by a bounty of small-scale farmers and food producers. These entrepreneurs are generating a reputation for marketing high-quality products that command premium prices.

Napa, for the most part, is known for its world-class wines. There are exceptions, however, to this narrow focus. Napa stalwarts such as the Robert Mondavi Winery, Beringer Vineyards and Sterling Vineyards have all made extensive commitments to discussing wine and food in a single breath. Yet, the emphasis in most of the Napa Valley remains on wine.

“Napa doesn’t have the diversity we do,” said Anita M. Velardi, resident chef for Gloria Ferrer Champagne Caves in Sonoma. “Agriculture in Napa is grapes, but in Sonoma it is apples, plums, specialty vegetables, goat cheese, duck, sausages, turkey, wine and many other things. I don’t see any other county in California doing what Sonoma is in its totality.”

Charles Saunders, chef at the Sonoma Mission Inn, expressed similar home-town chauvinism.

“Others just don’t travel with the intensity that we do,” he said.

Some of the dishes created for the affair reflected this abundance of riches such as Bodega Bay smoked salmon with red potato risotto. Another offering, loin of lamb with thyme, walnuts and wild honey, also demonstrated Sonoma’s range of ingredients. So did an appetizer: Sonoma-grown exotic mushrooms, edible seaweed and tagliarini with saffron ginger sauce.

The firms being lauded during “Sonoma Style” for their food products included Aidells Sausage Co., C K Lamb, Gourmet Mushrooms Inc., Laura Chenel’s Chevre Cheese and Reichardt’s Duck Farm.

Each of these food firms, as well as the others represented at the Biltmore, are dwarfed in terms of revenue by their colleagues in the wine business. Yet, their close proximity to the area’s vineyards has had some influence.

Glenn Proctor, viticulturist for Glen Ellen Winery, said his company is changing its style of wine with a nod toward being a more consistent food companion.

“We are trying to develop flavors in the wines that go much better with food and are more enjoyable, just more drinkable,” he said.

One Sonoma-based chef, John Ash of John Ash & Co. in Santa Rosa, said that the proliferation of boutique food firms has an importance that extends beyond improving gastronomy.

“As a chef I look at food as an art form and the small-scale farmers in Sonoma also are approaching it in that way,” he said. “It’s also exciting that there’s been a rebirth of the family farm in Sonoma County, where, on a small piece of land growers can eke out a living that fits their lifestyle.”

Ash, who has earned a reputation as one of Northern California’s leading chefs, has long purchased produce and other foods from local growers. Subsequently, his support of these efforts made their financial survival more certain.

However, Ash cautioned that specialty foods should not remain only the domain of expensive restaurants and gourmet food stores.

“There has been an element of preciousness in these boutique farms and some of our wineries. What has come out of this (condition) was, at times, too (frivolous),” he said. “The things happening on small farms should be aimed at getting to the masses, as well.”

And Ash added that events such as the Biltmore’s “Sonoma Style” certainly help in this fashion.

Although the event was meant to celebrate the gustatory delights of this Northern California area, farm politics also entered into the deliberations.

“We are blessed in Sonoma because it is a relatively pure environment that hasn’t been contaminated over the years,” Ash said.

Caterer Carol Klesow of Wine Country Cuisine also said there is more virtue to Sonoma than just the enticing flavors of its food and wine.

“We need to bring the message to the world that Sonoma County is one of the finest places on earth for farming and our job is to keep the county agricultural,” Klesow said. “And this agriculture provides more than just boutique foods, which have a (negative) fly-by-night image about them. But this small-scale style of farming also provides sustainable agriculture--a process that cares for the soil and environment.”

Judging by the 260 people in attendance at the Biltmore’s gala dinner, the Sonoma representatives acquitted themselves well in Los Angeles. Further, many of the wine and food representatives promised to return to stage a similar event soon.

Indeed, the Sonoma contingent must have hit on a viable theme with this marriage of food and wine and the competition has taken notice.

Right on the heels of the recent conference, Beringer Vineyards published its inaugural issue of “Napa Valley Tables,” a slick magazine. The publication aims to be “The Folio for Food & Wine.” Undoubtedly, a journal extolling Napa’s virtues in this rapidly emerging field.