Jesse Katz: Exploring Sonoma’s Bordeaux expressions

The Colorado native was 21 years old when he realised he knew what he wanted to do with his life. But his love for vineyards and the world of wine started much earlier.

As a child, Jesse had the unique privilege of travelling with his father, professional photographer Andy Katz. Including visits to the world’s most renowned wine regions–from Napa and Sonoma to Burgundy and Tuscany.

Watching his father work with famed winemakers and wine publication editors, and visiting some of the world’s most beautiful vineyards and estates left its mark on Jesse. He saw early on that working in the world of wine was a pretty great gig.

Scroll down to see Brooke Herron’s tasting notes and scores for seven Jesse Katz wines

Today, the winemaker presides over his winery, Aperture Cellars, and a second label, Devil Proof Vineyards. He’s also a partner and the winemaker for The Setting; his newest venture is a joint project with partners and a winemaker to the stars, thanks to a debut project early in his career making wine for friends Jessica Biel and Justin Timberlake’s wedding.

Unique beginnings

Raised in Boulder, Colorado, Jesse Katz moved to California at 18 to attend business school in Santa Barbara.

After taking a part-time job at a local winery, he felt the calling to build a life in wine and transferred to Fresno State, where he spent two-and-a-half years in a winemaking programme. He graduated in 2007 with a B.S. in Enology and Viticulture and a minor in Chemistry.

He then began travelling back and forth between Argentina and California, garnering experience in different cellars and hemispheres. This experience enabled him to land an enviable place on the winemaking team at Screaming Eagle in 2009.

Then it was a winemaking role at Lancaster Estate in the Alexander Valley, where he was the youngest to hold the title of head winemaker.

Having started his brands, Aperture and later Devil Proof, while working at Lancaster Estate, Jesse always wanted to build a winery of his own.

Then and now

In comparing what he did in the past versus today, Jesse says the main difference is his winemaking practices. He has free reign to do what he wants in the vineyards and winery. He also uses more site-specific techniques versus having a standard protocol.

Asked to elaborate, Jesse explains that ‘many wineries, for better or worse, treat everything the same in the cellar. ‘There’s a recipe or procedure that you follow.

‘For myself and my winemaking team, we will craft a winemaking technique based on a specific site. So, for instance, our Devil Proof Rockpile Ridge Malbec comes from the Rockpile Ridge AVA. It has a pronounced profile of volcanic rocks.

‘The fruit we get from this site is incredibly intense. It would be easy to over-extract and make a powerful wine from this site, but it’s more difficult to make a wine with richness and elegance.

‘So what we do is we go through the sorting process, but instead of putting the wine into normal fermentation vessels, we get these larger puncheon barrels. We pop the heads off, and berry sort right into the barrel. We do light punch downs for lighter extraction, barrel by barrel.

‘It’s a labour-intensive way of doing things, but it helps soften the tannins. This is just one of many examples of how we make site-focused wine making decisions.’

Tools of a modern winemaker

Winemakers have access to more and superior technology, information and equipment than was available just a decade ago.

Asked whether this has changed how he makes wine, Jesse says, ‘Yes, the best wines we’ve ever seen we’re making right now. Because we’re working with better fruit and the technology we have in the winery helps us make better wines.

‘First, it all starts in the vineyard. We have a much better understanding of water stress, cover crop, canopy load, crop management, and all that good stuff now than we did 15 years ago.

Secondly, the more advanced technology and equipment we’re now able to use helps us to get at the core of that fruit and eliminate extremes on either side.

An example is in California, where we are worried about heat spikes, which inevitably lead to some grapes being overexposed and dehydration, resulting in rising brix during maceration.

‘If we can eliminate the dehydrated grapes through optical sorting, we’re looking at less brix soaking up during maceration than we’d get without the optical sorter.

On the other side of things, if we’re working with fruit that’s not quite as ripe or has green berries or shot berries, we’re also able to eliminate those and get to the core of the fruit, leaving us with better, more uniformly ripe fruit.

It results in a less altered wine because we’re eliminating these variables before fermentation rather than having to correct them later. In essence, technology allows us to work with a better and less altered finished product.’

A rising star

On the topic of recognition and fame so early in his career, Jesse shares the most significant tipping point – making a special wine for Justin Timberlake to serve at his and Jessica Biel’s wedding in 2012, which happened entirely organically.

‘I went to school and was friends with Jessica’s younger brother, so I knew her and Justin by that time. When Justin proposed to Jess, he called me up and said we’d love to serve your wines at our wedding, and I had this idea to do two barrels of wine and do a custom bottle, label, name-custom everything.

‘We called it Blue Ocean Floor from one of the songs on Justin’s album at the time, which he had written about Jess, and we used a painting one of his friends had done based on the song and used that for the label. So this was something I did as an exciting project with and for friends, but then the PR that followed was huge, which I didn’t expect at the time.’

In the two years that followed, Jesse garnered more national recognition. He made lists in major publications in 2013 and 2014. He was approached to make wine for celebrities and earned the title of head winemaker at Lancaster Estate.

In the years since, Katz has continued to work on projects with several professional athletes and celebrities such as Tony Hawk, Ellen Degeneres, and The Lakers. In November of 2021, one of the winemaker’s bottles (a six-litre of The Setting Glass Slipper Cabernet) sold for a record-breaking $1 million at an Emeril Lagasse benefit auction event.

Asked whether the notoriety/visibility has ever felt like too much, the winemaker confidently states that he wouldn’t change anything up to this point. ‘The projects I’ve done over the past ten years have given me a lot of visibility and the ability to fund my winery myself and support some great causes. I’m thankful that I’m now at a point in my career where I can say yes and no to projects, and I’ve got my winery built, and it’s in a good place.’

The family connection

When asked about his father’s involvement in the business, Jesse says, ‘My father is our biggest fan and loves the wines. He also has an incredible eye and vision. He had some amazing ideas for some of the winery and hospitality space’s aesthetics and design. Anytime we create a new wine, for instance, we’re intentional in picking out the photo that will be on the label of that wine.

‘So every time a new wine comes out, my father is involved with selecting a photo from his collection for its label. Usually, it involves a few cases of wine and probably 30 or 40 photos that we go through before we come down to the final one, and then we’ll create a label around that.’

What lies ahead

Starting at 220 cases in its first vintage and using purchased fruit, Aperture Cellars is now a full-fledged state-of-the-art winery with a hospitality space and 140 acres (57ha) of estate vineyards.

While proud of his accomplishments thus far, Jesse clarifies that this is not the ceiling. ‘I want to continue establishing Aperture as one of the great Bordeaux houses in the world, and I truly think we can do that with the team I have behind me.’

See Brooke Herron’s tasting notes and scores for seven Jesse Katz wines

Related content

West Sonoma Coast and top Pinots and Chardonnays to try

Napa Cabernet 2019: full vintage report and top-scoring wines

Napa and Sonoma wineries to visit: 15 of the best