SEATTLE — What do a rock star, a seafood restauranteur, and a winery owner have in common? An urgent concern for wild salmon swimming in Washington state waters.
Pat Monahan of rock band Train, Duke Moscrip of Duke’s Seafood, and Heather Andersen of Damsel Cellars partnered to create a new wine to help save salmon.
“Up River Red” will be sold at all seven Duke’s locations, with a portion of proceeds donated to nonprofits focused on habitat restoration, research and policy change.
"In the last 200 years, we've lost 95% of the wild salmon resource in the Northwest,” said Moscrip, founder of Duke’s Seafood.
The Seattle restauranteur practiced sustainability decades before it was commonplace, including traveling to Alaska and visiting commercial fishing boats to personally make sure the fish on his menu are caught responsibly.
"It's probably 45 years, I've been working on this. And now I'm working even harder on it because it's more important - because the salmon are going extinct,” Moscrip said. "It just hits me - the thought of losing salmon, it's senseless to me. It does not make any sense."
That's where Monahan comes in. He met Moscrip through friends and was moved by his passion about the dwindling numbers.
"That was really all it took. Once you know, you can't unknow,” Monahan said. "Once salmon go, that's the first of many (animals) that will come after. So we have to start here.”
That's where Andersen entered the picture. In addition to co-owning Damsel Cellars, she's also Monahan’s neighbor.
"That's how we first met and then we started having wine together,” she said. “And then during COVID times...”
“We really got tight,” Monahan added, laughing.
They threw around the idea of launching a wine for philanthropic reasons, and all the pieces fell into place. Monahan and Andersen partnered with Moscrip and his son John to create the benefit wine, a cabernet sauvignon from the Candy Mountain AVA.
"It gives the wine a purpose,” Andersen said. "Enjoy the wine, be together, and then also know the proceeds go to something important."
Diners at Duke’s can enjoy wine by the glass or bottle.
"I find that the wine goes best with four things: breakfast, lunch, dinner, and then like right before you go to bed,” Monahan joked. "This little bottle of wine could actually make a real change and I think if that’s meant to be, I'd like to be a part of that.”
Changing the course of Northwest wild salmon history is still a long road ahead. But the partners believe life brought them together at the right time, for the right purpose.
"To be able to work on something with good friends and do something good in the world? It couldn't be better,” Moscrip said.
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