Colorado-Bred Winemaker Creates 41 Wines With Perfect 100 Scores (Forbes)
Gary Stoller
January 14, 2026
Colorado native Jesse Katz, who sold a single bottle of wine for a record $1 million in 2021, has accumulated 41 perfect 100-point scores for his wines and was named Winemaker of the Year.
Boulder, Colorado, is known for its many breweries, but a favorite son has made his mark in another liquor-related pursuit: winemaking. Jesse Katz, the cofounder of luxury wine company The Setting Wines, sold a single bottle for a record $1 million at a charity auction in 2021 and was named Winemaker of the Year last month by Wine Enthusiast.
It was another feather in the cap for Katz who has racked up perfect scores for 41 of his wines.
“I have received 41 perfect 100-point scores from six different critics, and anything that I put to bottle I believe can sit on the table with the best in its category from anywhere in the world,” he says.
Katz’s 2021 Aperture Farrow Ranch Cabernet Sauvignon was the first Sonoma cabernet sauvignon to earn 100 points in Wine Enthusiast’s history. Only two cabernet sauvignons from California have ever received such a score.
The Setting Wines is currently selling a three-bottle Winemaker of the Year Collector’s Set for $585. The set is comprised of two 2022 Napa Valley wines—Glass Slipper Vineyard Cabernet Sauvignon and Pearl’s Farm Vineyard Cabernet Sauvignon—and 2022 Rockpile Ridge Vineyard Cabernet Sauvignon from Sonoma County. Two of the wines were given a 99 score and one a 98 score by International Wine Report.
The record-setting $1 million sale was a six-liter bottle of 2019 Glass Slipper Vineyard Cabernet Sauvignon at the Emeril Lagasse Foundation’s Carnivale du Vin auction.
“This was The Setting Wines’ first single-vineyard wine ever produced, and a vineyard we have received 100-point scores from,” Katz says.