Our Story

SCHULZ CELLARS was founded in 2005 by John and Michele Schulz who have a combined 35 years of experience in the wine industry.

John's career started in the mid eighties with a large winery in the Central Valley where he worked in the cellar as well as sales on the weekends in the tasting room. Though a natural progression, he moved to outside sales for a small central coast wine distributor. In the early nineties he took a position at Franciscan winery where I spent nearly ten years in sales throughout the US. Over the past few years, John has dedicated his sales experience to a number of small ultra premium winery's throughout Napa Valley.

Michele began her wine career in the early nineties at Pine Ridge Winery and is now the Consumer Direct Sales Manager at Arrowood Winery in Sonoma Valley. Prior to this, Michele was able to sharpen her wine skills with stints in retail sales at a well known wine shop in Denver, worked harvest 2009 at Chateau Ste. Michelle in Washington State as well as spent 5 years with Cliff Lede Vineyards as the Consumer Direct Sales Manager.  Michele currently is the Direct to Consumer Marketing Manager for Arrowood Winery & Matanzas Creek Winery.

Having experience in both winemaking and sales, they were then lucky enough to have some close friends with recently planted vineyard land in Napa that was not yet under contract. They began making very small amounts of Zinfandel from the Lampyridae Vineyard on Mount Veeder in 2001. Their first commercially released bottling was from the 2005 vintage with a Syrah, Oak Knoll District, Fortunati Vineyard and the Zinfandel. In the 2006 vintage, they added a Red Wine to our portfolio called “Samuel’s Cuvee” which is a blend of Napa Valley Cabernet and Syrah. They will also add a Cabernet Sauvignon, Mount Veeder, Lampyridae Vineyard in 2010. The result is the formation of Schulz Cellars and the commitment to producing high quality vineyard designate wines from the Napa Valley.

Schulz Cellars has been a life long goal for John and Michele and they hope that their wines will find their way into your homes and onto your table in the coming year and for many years to follow