Wine Auction By Carolyn Christian
2025 has been a great year for the OCWS Wine Auction! I am so proud of this year’s amazing Wine Auction committee and the event volunteers who worked so hard to present an incredibly successful event. Despite a few behind-the-scenes challenges this year, the event ran smoothly. We don’t have the final figures yet, but our gross revenue was 9.6% more than projected. This was achieved despite having only 5.5% more wine lots than last year.
Many thanks to our donors for the Special Auction this year:
Hall Wines
Walt Wines
Venge Vineyards
Larkmead Vineyards
MacRostie Winery
Booker Wines
Emercy Wines
Turley Wines
Future Perfect Wine
Parrish Family Vineyard
Alma Rosa Winery & Vineyards
Denner Vineyards
Crown Point Vineyards
DeFalco Damily Foods & Wines
Wine Guy & Wine Gal
Edgar Allen Poe Speakeasy
Ortiz Fire Protection
Shelton Fire Protection
Hands On Wellness Center
Sue England
Ellen Flynn
Cathy & Lee Painter
Michael Sun
J’anna Jennings
Carolyn & Damian Christian
Adrienne & Dino Amico
Tricia Shelton
Liquid Farm
Hundreds of volunteer hours went into the preparation of our second largest fundraiser of the year. I would like to recognize a host of people who made the event a great success.
A BIG Thank you to my Wine Auction Committee (I affectionally call the Wine Auction Warriors) for the amazing job they did this year:
- Adrienne Amico – Verbal Auction
- Dino Amico – Wine Ops – Security
- Chris Bruce – Computers/Data Entry
- Hank Bruce – Wine Ops – Warehouse
- Damian Christian – Wine Ops – Auction Floor and Workers
- Kevin Coy – Advisor
- Stephanie Djang – Verification
- Sue England – Volunteers
- Ellen Flynn – VIP Experience
- Fran Gitsham – Advisor
- Scott Green – Computers
- Shannon Jestin – Check-in
- Laurie Kjar-Reiss – Checkout
- Cathy Painter – Event Food and Wine
- Lee Painter – Wine Ops – Verification
- Rochelle Randel – Administration
- Bill Redding – Advisor
- Janet Riordan – Checkout
- Tricia Shelton – Special Winery Experience Auction
- Daniel Vlahovic – Wine Ops – Verification
- Jolen Zeroski – Check-in
A special thank you to Bill Redding and his dedicated team who catalogued and prepared the wines prior to the event. And to Kevin Coy for overseeing the crew to move over 4,300 bottles of wine from the cellar to the auction floor. This crew included a number of students from the OCC Culinary Arts program that we support with our Scholarship Fund. This year they moved the wine in record time and finished that portion of the setup by 9:45 a.m.
Hats off to our top 10 spenders for their generous bids that made this event successful.
- Kathy & William Schymick
- Eberhard & Mary Anne Neutz
- Dewey & Diana Davide
- Sandi & Danny Jones
- Lou & Shelley Cohen
- Robert Maloney & Joey DeLeon
- Taylor & Steve Alber
- Robin McCormick
- Mark & Jody Theissen
- Mike & Cathy MacKenzie
The Wine Auction requires an army of volunteers and workers. My sincerest thanks to every person who donated their time. Your contribution made a big difference in the success of the event. Special thanks to those who stepped up to assist with verification and checkout.
This event is so crucial to our organization and would not be possible without our members who attend this event each year. Thank you to nearly 200 attendees who patiently waited while we verified that each bidder had the correct lots in their boxes. At the end of the day, we didn’t have a single lot missing!
We hope you enjoy the wines that you purchased at a fraction of retail and thank you for supporting OCWS and its educational mission. We will see you next year to do it all over again!