Sean Capiaux

President And Winemaker

Sean Capiaux has spent forty years learning what mountain vineyards require — and what they will reward, given time.

He trained at Jordan in Sonoma, worked harvests in Perth, and refined his technique at Pine Ridge before spending four formative years at Peter Michael Winery, where elevated terroir and minimal intervention became a philosophy rather than a technique. By the time he arrived at O’Shaughnessy in 2000, he had a clear point of view: the winemaker’s job is to stay out of the wine’s way.

That conviction shapes everything in the cellar. Sean’s wines are naturally fermented, bottled unfined and unfiltered, and built for the long term. No shortcuts, no cosmetic corrections. The Cabernets from Howell Mountain and Mount Veeder are structured for a decade or more in bottle — wines that reward the same patience the mountains require from the vines.

What drives Sean is the specificity of place. The same Cabernet Sauvignon grape behaves entirely differently at 1,800 feet on Howell Mountain’s volcanic soils than it does on the valley floor in Oakville. Reading those differences vintage to vintage — and making decisions that honor them — is work he finds endlessly interesting.

“These vineyards have a character that doesn’t need to be invented. My job is just not to obscure it.” — Sean