Built by someone who
grew up in wine country

The Founder

Zak Bedrosian

Founder, Oxto

Zak Bedrosian is the founder of Oxto, a next generation discovery platform built to transform the wine country experience.

With a background in private equity and hospitality, he combines institutional thinking with a deep understanding of consumer behavior, shaped by building a fast-growing audience of over 16,000 followers and studying how people actually discover, choose, and share experiences.

Having grown up around his family's winery in Sonoma, Zak recognized a fundamental problem: great wineries weren't the issue, discovery was. Oxto was built to bridge that gap, connecting people to wineries that actually fit what they're looking for.

The Problem

Wine country is overwhelming by design.

There are thousands of wineries across the United States. Yelp gives you stars. Winery websites give you marketing copy. Word of mouth gives you your friend's favorite, which may have nothing to do with yours. None of it tells you what the experience is actually like — who it's for, what the atmosphere feels like, whether it matches what you're looking for that day.

The problem isn't that people don't like wine. It's that they don't know which winery is for them.

I saw this firsthand working at my family's tasting room at Domaine de la Rivière. Talking with guests, it became obvious how much uncertainty went into choosing where to go — people were relying on Yelp, word of mouth, or random lists. The wineries weren't the problem, discovery was.

Why Oxto

Discovery built around atmosphere.

Oxto is a wine country discovery engine that helps people find wineries that actually match what they are looking for — the one that fits their group, their mood, their budget, and the kind of afternoon they want.

At its core, Oxto is data driven. We combine structured winery data with direct input from consumers on their taste and what they are looking for in the moment, then layer in real signals from how people search, save, visit, and share. This powers more accurate recommendations while continuously improving winery profiles with real experience data — so the platform gets smarter with every interaction.

For wineries, this means attracting visitors who are already aligned with their experience instead of relying on chance. For consumers, it means discovering places through friends, shared collections, and trusted recommendations instead of endless scrolling.

What We Believe