About

Chris O’Connell is a 5^th generation Californian, born just an hour from wine country in Redwood City, CA. After graduating from Woodside High School, he earned his BA in Communication Studies from CSU, Sacramento. Starting in the late 90’s, he began regularly visiting Sonoma County and discovered his interest in wine.  In 2006, Chris moved to Sonoma with his family and discovered his passion for wine would turn into a new endeavor. After spending many years in retail management and the auto industry, he leveraged his people and sales skills to start a profession in tasting rooms and never looked back.

Chris has nearly five years in the industry and over 15 years of sales, customer service and hospitality experience. He loves sharing his passion with visitors to Sonoma County’s wine country and prides himself on making wine easy to understand and in a down to earth, unpretentious fashion. Chris remains focused on offering an educational environment where the staff and the guests have a great time.

Chris’ passion for wine continues to expand as he absorbs as much wine knowledge as he possible can – reading, taking classes and tasting wine whenever he has free time. In 2010, Chris created the blog Sonoma Cork Dork to share his experiences in the wine country. On his days off he loves spending time with his wife and two daughters, biking, grilling, baking and of course wine tasting and drinking!