Russian River

The Fort Ross Seaview AVA is one of 19 sub-wine regions within the greater Sonoma County wine country.

The Fort Ross Seaview AVA is remote, wooded, and mountainous, and lies in the high ridges above Jenner, California, where the Russian River meets the Pacific Ocean.

This part of wine country is named after Fort Ross, the historic outpost of Russian settlers along Highway 1.

And it's here where my guest calls home.

Yeah, Kirkland.

Russian River.

Some of them are expensive, too.

Like 20 bucks.

Yeah.

And he landed on a property in the wine country in Sonoma on the Russian River, which allowed us an opportunity to purchase a property that was essentially in foreclosure for $500,000 U.S. dollars.

And we brought in a great architect to help us envision what would it look like if we built an idealized outdoor lodging or glamping facility.

site from the ground up.

But we knew that if we were going to scale this up, we needed a manufacturing partner that could FedEx a part Baroque.

And so Bob offered to be that for us.

And when we ultimately began scaling up and built the auto camp in Sonoma on the Russian River, we looked to Airstream to manufacture those units for us.

They sent us an empty aluminum shell, and we built out what we thought, based on our guests' feedback, was going to be the idealized kind of interior with a big comfortable bedroom and kitchen and room for kids to sleep and a nice, beautiful spa-inspired bathroom.

And so, you know, I joined Casa Brown when we were, you know, working with had been probably close to, you know, coming on 10 years.

Working with the same Appalachians, which was obviously Russian River and Sonoma Coast and then San Lucia Highlands.

San Lucia has always been a part of our story.

We started there in the early 2000s working with the Pisonis and the Franciones.

And for example, Cerise Vineyard is a Appalachian and Anderson Valley in general that carries a lot more tannin than most other California regions.

And that's very, it was very evident in the previous owner's wines.

They were great wines, but they were definitely firm, right? Russian River, Sonoma Coast, certainly a lot more plush, a lot more generous, pleasurable.

Santa Rita, a little bit more light, redder, brighter, fresher fruit.

Well, the grove itself...

It's 2,700 acres of redwood forest near Monte Rio, California, on the Russian River in Sonoma County.

I've watched the videos of...

That's prime real estate, man.

They were Scottish people who left Ireland, came to the United States and Canada.

Finally ended up in the Healdsburg area, the Russian River area of, of northern California.

And my gran- great-grandfather became quite a prosperous, uh, uh, orchard, uh, farmer and that kind of thing, and also owned a store and what have you.

His wife, my great-grandmother, became acquainted with Seventh Day Adventists and became a member, but not her husband, and, uh, my great-grandfather.

What do you think people need to do? You know, 'cause sooner or later, that's gonna be a massive struggle, you know, in, in the North Bay.

You know, you have the Russian River, you know, fresh

freshYou know, source of water that these data centers demand in order to operate.

Are, are you hearing any talks on people starting to think about that a- and to organize against it?

I'm so sorry.

I think it's at the bottom of the Russian River.

Oh.

[laughs]

It could, it could be at the bottom of another river, but I'm pretty sure it's the Russian River.

Oh, goodness.

[laughs]