land & sea.
Planes, Vines and Automobiles
Returning to a life of adventure has helped winemaker Shannon O’Shaughnessy experience life to the fullest. By Daniel Jewett
A SERIOUS ILLNESS in 2009 at age 39 changed Shannon O’Shaughnessy’s perspective on what it means to be alive. That pivotal event led her to where she is now — flying vintage airplanes, driving fast cars and making wine. “Prior to having kids, I was a dive master, an avid hiker; I did all of those things. There was nothing better I’d ever done in my life than being a mother, but I’d lost myself in that a little bit,” O’Shaughnessy says, pointing to a life-changing leap off a tall rock in a river between surgeries that changed her point of view. “I made a commitment that I was going to do the things I hadn’t done. Am I going to take the shortcut? Or am I going to figure out a way to make it meaningful and live my life with intention and teach my kids to do it that way, too.” Her dad had already instilled a fondness for planes — she still remembers sitting with her two sisters in the back of his plane with their Barbie dolls — and the German cars the family admired. But her parents — moving from Minneapolis to Napa and purchasing property in Oakville in the 1990s — instilled something else: a Midwestern sense of hard work as
O’Shaughnessy leans on a 1960 Porsche 356B with a PT-17 Stearman biplane in the background.
78 september 2021 marin living.
