Christopher Tracy

James Christopher Tracy was born and raised in the San Francisco Bay Area, where he was exposed to art, great wines, and a passionate food culture from an early age.

Christopher attended schools on both the East and West coasts, and after earning a BA in Performing Arts and Philosophy, he moved to NYC to pursue graduate theatre training.

In 1993, with his wife Allison Dubin, he co-founded the Momentary Theatre, a not-for-profit organization that performed in California, New York, Texas, Connecticut and Hungary.

After several years of writing “undercover” restaurant reviews in NYC, on the side, Christopher attended the French Culinary Institute in Manhattan, where he graduated first in his class and received a Grand Diplome.

While working as a chef, Christopher continued to pursue his wine education, earning his Sommelier Certificate from the Sommelier Society of America as well as a Higher Certificate from the Wine and Spirits Education Trust. He also holds a Certified Wine Educator certification from the Society of Wine Educators.

Christopher first came to Channing Daughters in 1999 as a Wine Club member. In 2001, he began developing several new products and cuvées for the winery. His extraordinary creativity and talent as a winemaker — for which he has since developed an international reputation — was evident from day one, and he quickly became our primary winemaker and a partner in the business.

Christopher approaches winemaking with a chef’s attention to flavor, an artist’s appetite for experimentation and a farmer's respect for the land. He works in small batches, drawing on both ancient and modern practices including field blending, wild yeast fermentation, skin-contact and maceration for white wines and botanical aromatizing for vermouths. Above all, he cherishes the chance to make delicious, surprising wines that create joy and are unmistakably reflective of the place they are from.