Scott Schultz
“The whole jolie-laide thing — unconventionally attractive, pretty and ugly together? That leaves room to be different without so much correctness.”
Age: 37
What he does: Crafts outré-sounding but remarkably friendly wines for his JolieLaide label.
Backstory: After Schultz worked both the front and back of the house at restaurants in Chicago and Las Vegas, a job at the Vegas outpost of Bouchon pushed him to a job as wine director for the Yountville flagship of Thomas Keller’s bistro. In Napa, he began apprenticing in cellars, and in 2010 wound up interning for Wind Gap’s Pax Mahle, who let him make a bit of wine for himself using the obscure Trousseau Gris grape. A motorcycle accident sidelined him, but after he recovered he took a job as Mahle’s assistant, which remains his day job. Jolie-Laide’s Trousseau Gris, meantime, had become a bit of a runaway hit both for its style — a skin-fermented wine that can be fruity and cerebral without the cul-de-sac of esoterica — and everchanging labels (line drawings of nude women; botanical etchings of butterflies) inspired by Sine Qua Non’s Manfred Krankl. With a Pinot Gris and two red wines in the roster, Schultz’s side project has become a darling in San Francisco and far beyond.
Harvest fuel: Guayaki Yerba Mate; shots of Tequila and mezcal. Also: “If anyone breaks out some tortilla chips with pub cheese, affectionately referred to as crack cheese, everyone surrounds like sharks.”
Dream project: To open an East Bay winery live/work space and mixed-use complex. “Being from Chicago I am a total city kid at heart. I have learned to adore the bounty of Sonoma County, but I would love to be able to coalesce these two worlds.”
From the notebook: The Trousseau Gris ($26) remains essential — deeply salmon-colored but friendly in its cornsilk texture — although a new Love Grenache ($42) from Sonoma’s Provisor Vineyard shows Schultz’s strength with that grape.