Cho Wines

Dave Cho was born in South Korea, immigrated to Canada young, and lost his father shortly after arriving — his mother ran the family restaurant with help from her two sons. That’s where his sense of food and drink as the thing that holds relationships together came from. He was studying to become a pastor when he met Lois at a church concert rehearsal. The two ended up busking together on the streets of Santa Monica.

Playing gigs at wineries in Temecula got Dave curious. He took a job as a winery lab tech, visited Napa, and decided. In 2014 he moved the family to Oregon for a degree in enology and viticulture at Oregon State, working harvests at Stoller Family Estate, Argyle, and Duck Pond along the way, and spending time in Burgundy. When the pandemic hit in 2020, Lois suggested it was the moment to make his own wine. They founded CHO that year and shipped their first bottles in May 2021.

The name works two ways: the family name, and carbon, hydrogen, and oxygen — the elements common to all living things and to everything shared at a table. Lois left a decade-long career as a family nurse practitioner to become CEO in 2022 and now handles everything outside the cellar, from PR to graphic design. Dave is Oregon’s first Korean American winemaker, and the couple the first Korean Americans to build a winery here from the ground up.

In late 2021 they bought 77 acres on the west flank of the Chehalem Mountains below Bald Peak, ranging from 650 to 1,150 feet. Eight and a half acres are planted to Pinot Noir, Chardonnay, and Pinot Gris, with 300-year-old Oregon white oaks preserved and an oak savanna in development. The tasting room and 4,800-square-foot production facility opened in 2024, drawing on elements of hanok architecture.

They make around 25 styles, and the sparkling program is the standout — traditional method Blanc de Noirs and Blanc de Blancs with extended tirage alongside pét-nats and “Method Dave,” a lower-pressure, more relaxed style. Their sparkling made the Enthusiast 100 in both 2022 and 2024, blind-tasted against more than 20,000 wines. Other honors include Wine Enthusiast’s Future 40 Tastemaker, SevenFifty Daily’s Drinks Innovator of 2023, and Wine Business Monthly’s Hot Brand of 2024. Their story ran on the Today Show and NBC Nightly News.

Lois also founded AAPI Food and Wine, a nonprofit whose festival launched in the Willamette Valley in 2023 and premiered in New York in 2026.