Some Winemakers Follow the Rules. Others Follow Their Gut.
Mar 16, 2025
Hi Wine Friends
Continuing our celebration of all things women-related this month, I'm here today to talk about intuition – a superpower that I believe all women possess. When I asked guests on Her Way what their superpower was, almost all of them referenced intuition. Whether they phrased it as the ability to "read the room," "understand people," or simply "trust their instincts," intuition clearly plays a huge role in women’s personal and professional lives, and I believe that extends to wine.
Last week, we talked about how hormones can affect women's tasting abilities. This week, we're diving deeper into the neuroscience behind women's intuition and how it can impact winemaking.
A recent Psychology Today article confirms what many of us already know – women are wired for intuition. Studies show that women’s brains have more connections between the left and right hemispheres, making them especially good at blending logic with gut instinct. The reason being that the *pushes glasses up nose* corpus callosum – the connective tissue between the brain's hemispheres – is thicker in women, allowing for faster communication between the intuitive right side and the logical left.
This heightened connectivity also helps women pick up on subtle social cues, body language, and emotional undercurrents – things that often go unnoticed but can shape important decisions. This ability to quickly process both internal and external cues is why women tend to have strong instincts, even in high-pressure situations. They might not always be able to explain why they know something – they just know.
Intelligence agencies have actually found that women make excellent spies because they can read between the lines, detect patterns, and see things that aren’t immediately obvious. So if wine doesn’t work out for me… look for me in the CIA 😉
That’s not to say men don’t have intuition, or that women aren’t capable of logical reasoning. Both skills exist in everyone’s brains; we’re just wired differently. And both skillsets have their strengths! Yet society has long undervalued intuition, favoring logic as the superior form of decision-making. Women are often taught to suppress their instincts, dismissing them as irrational or overly emotional. But intuition – especially in fields like winemaking – is an undeniable strength.
This has been front of mind this week as I’m in the middle of planning Arden’s next wine event with Jenny Schultz of Jolie Laide Wines. Jolie Laide has long been one of my favorite Sonoma producers – and favorite producers, period. They were actually one of the first wineries I fell in love with way back when I got my somm pin and was slinging wine in Los Angeles.
Jolie Laide is the definition of intuitive winemaking – to the extent that they even rebrand their labels every single year based on what artist they feel aligned with! When you think about how much work goes into building a brand and creating brand recognition in this overwhelming market, it’s staggering to think that they start from scratch every year – new imagery, new label style, new font, new everything.
And often new grape varietals! Just like Jolie Laide isn’t committed to a particular aesthetic, they also don’t want to be bound by making the same five wines every year. While they generally repeat some favorites (their highly unique and utterly delicious Trousseau Gris has built a small cult following), they try new things every year based on what feels exciting.
On a visit to Sonoma last November, when we started the conversation about this Arden event, I sat down with Jenny and her partner Scott and tasted through their current lineup. We tasted Aligote, Valdiguié, Melon de Bourgogne, Poulsard, Gamay, Trousseau Gris (and Noir), Mondeuse, and Grenache – just to name a few! And when asked how they picked what grapes they want to work with each year, Jenny responded as many women on Her Way did: she didn’t really know – it’s whatever feels right.
The irony here (or perhaps the ammunition) is that Jenny earned her master’s in oenology at UC Davis, the most renowned and rigorous winemaking program in the country – and one known for very traditional winemaking as opposed to natural or experimental ideology. But after years of working harvests across the globe, Jenny found herself drawn to something less structured and more visceral. She wanted to make wines that felt right, not just those that made sense on paper.
At Jolie Laide, the only “rules” that she and Scott embrace are those around not interfering too much with natural processes – fermenting with native yeasts, foot-crushing grapes, aging in neutral oak, and adding as little as possible to the juice – maybe a touch of sulfur at bottling to keep things stable. Each vintage is an expression of what excites them in the moment, not a formula to be replicated year after year.
This was not intended to be a pitch to join the Jolie Laide takeover on April 4th, but if you want to taste intuitive winemaking at its finest… you should come to the Jolie Laide takeover on April 4th. 😬 It’s more casual than our regular wine dinners because it’s a choose-your-adventure format: rolling reservations with a 4-course prix fixe menu, a welcome glass of Trousseau Gris, and from there you can follow your intuition with whatever sounds the most fun–pairings, glasses, or bottles of the eight wines they are bringing.
Even if you don’t make it, seek out a bottle of Jolie Laide. Or bottles from so many other incredible female winemakers this month (and every month!). And let it fuel you to empower your own intuition in all areas of your life.
Cheers,
Kelsey
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