CEO of Marin County’s O’Neill Vintners named national ‘wine star’

Jeff O'Neill, founder and CEO of Larkspur-based O'Neill Vintners & Distillers, has been awarded the 2022 Person of the Year Wine Star Award by Wine Enthusiast magazine.

After leading publicly traded Golden State Vintners for 20 years, he founded O'Neill Vintners & Distillers in 2004, now the 10th largest winery in the United States, the magazine stated. Outside of O'Neill Vintners & Distillers, O’Neil is part-owner of Ram's Gate Winery in Sonoma and is the founder of Velocity Invitational, an annual luxury wine and motorsports festival hosted at Weathertech Raceway Laguna Seca in Monterey, California.

The company achieved B Corporation certification in 2021, then this year it earned Wine Institute's California Green Medal Leader Award.

“From one of the world's largest worm-powered wastewater recycling systems to a 5,000-panel solar farm to a regenerative farming study to requiring sustainable certification of all its growers across 15,000 California-planted vineyard acres, O'Neill has proven large-scale wineries have the power to be a force for good. Giving back is an essential part of O'Neill's DNA: The Charles Woodson & O'Neill Family Wine Scholarships offer two four-year, full-ride college scholarships to BIPOC students entering the wine industry,” the announcement stated.