L.A.'s king of super chuggers keeps making wild wines - and serious ones too

"With his nimbus of graying hair and penchant for tracksuit casual, Scott Sampler looks more like an aging deejay than what he is: a winemaker. His wines have landed on the lists of top-end restaurants like Hatchet Hall, Vespertine, Meteora, Anajak Thai and Manuela, where they're often singled out with sidebars, subsections and narrative intros, declaring, in so many words, "Check this guy out!""

"Even in a town like Los Angeles, where the rules for what is and what isn't cool to drink can be relentlessly, er, fluid, Sampler's wines have managed to channel L.A.'s boundless culinary enthusiasms for the past decade. Pungent, savory, defiantly unfruity, his wines can be polarizing even in the era of natural wine, when wine's very range of flavors is in flux."

"Sampler has three distinct wine brands. There's Scotty-Boy! (exclamation his), perhaps his most visible and accessible, with arcane names like "Big Tang" and "El Sandweech!!!" They're often blends of grape varieties that really have no business being in the same bottle, like Chardonnay and Riesling, with varying levels of skin contact, co-fermentation, carbonic ferments or pétillance. Wines from the other two brands, CCGP (Central Coast Group Project)"

Scott Sampler produces distinctive, often polarizing wines that reflect Los Angeles culinary enthusiasms. He favors pungent, savory, defiantly unfruity expressions achieved through skin contact, co-fermentation, carbonic ferments and pétillance. His wines appear on top-end restaurant lists and frequently receive prominent placement. He manages three brands: Scotty-Boy!, CCGP (Central Coast Group Project) and L'Arge d'Oor, ranging from playful, accessible blends to long-aged, serious bottlings. Some releases spend as much as 12 years in barrel and bottle. His approach draws on an artistic temperament and philosophical curiosity, with few self-imposed boundaries.

Read at Los Angeles Times