Winemakers On Fire, Issue #119

Greetings from Cape Town, South Africa!

This week, we're exploring what happens when creative freedom collides with institutional expectations. Carl Schultz didn't plan to leave Hartenberg after 32 years as cellarmaster, but when the ability to "paint the picture like I saw it" narrowed to something more prescriptive, he faced an impossible choice. 

At 60, with thinner financial cushions and no safety net, he launched Solo Wines—not as a retirement project, but as a winemaker liberated. From regenerative agriculture breakthroughs to investment-grade wines built for decades, Carl reveals the hidden costs of compromise and why some calamities hide extraordinary opportunities. 

This is his story, unfiltered.

The Unexpected Liberation of Carl Schultz

After 32 years as Hartenberg's cellarmaster, Carl Schultz didn't leave on his terms. He left because the creative freedom that defined his career—the ability to "paint the picture like I saw it and like I felt"—had narrowed to something more prescriptive. The winds of change were blowing, and rather than drift with them, he chose to chart his own course. What looked like an ending became the catalyst for something more audacious: Solo Wines by Carl Schultz, launched in January 2025.

This isn't a retirement project or a vanity label. It's a winemaker at the height of his powers, liberated from institutional expectations, channelling decades of expertise into wines that answer to no one but him.

When Leaving at the Peak Means Starting Over

The dream was always to finish like Usain Bolt—bow out at the pinnacle, legacy intact. But wine estates aren't neutral stages. They're living entities shaped by ownership philosophies, and when those shift, the winemaker faces a choice: adapt or exit.

"I was following a dream of Ken McKenzie," Carl explains, referring to Hartenberg's previous ownership vision. "Eventually, you need to decide whether you want to go a certain path or whether you need to do like Usain Bolt and leave at a high point."

The departure hurt. Rumours circulated that he left in a huff, desperate to make his own wine. Nothing could be further from the truth. "Hartenberg is my brand, it is my life. I gave my working life for that brand," he says. The catalyst wasn't ambition—it was the erosion of creative autonomy. "When you no longer can paint with total freedom and it becomes a bit more prescriptive and you feel that it affects the quality of one's work, then you need to ask serious questions."

At 60, starting over wasn't the plan. The timing was daunting, the financial cushion thinner than it would have been in five years. But here's where Carl's philosophy crystallises: "The wine industry can be very humbling. My favourite winemakers are really good at what they do, but they stay true to who they are and they're humble."

The Name That Found Him When He Needed It Most

"Solo" wasn't a calculated brand strategy. It was a gift from Philip Costandius, a former chairman of the Cape Winemakers Guild and the brainchild behind the Cape Winemakers Guild Development Trust and its Protégé Program. Philip had registered the name in 1988, when going independent was radical. Carl had always loved the name and even joked about buying it one day.

When the Hartenberg chapter closed, the loneliness was visceral. "It gnaws at your core. It was lonely. There were times when you felt, this is it, you're on your own."

Then Philip called. The name wasn't for sale—he was giving it away. No charge. Just one winemaker passing a torch to another.

"The goodwill is amazing," Carl reflects. "You just shake your head sometimes and think, wow. You worry about something, and then all of a sudden, maybe not in your time, but all of a sudden, there's an answer."

Solo became more than a brand. It's the philosophical anchor: doing it his way, on his terms, proudly the sole director. And perhaps, one day, a legacy for his son Mark, currently in his second year of wine studies.

Quality Through Scarcity, Not Volume

Carl's production philosophy is elegantly simple: as small as possible without compromising quality. At Hartenberg, he created five super-premium wines, producing 200 to 500 cases each. That's his ceiling. Not because he lacks ambition, but because he understands the elastic relationship between quality and quantity.

"Compromise is for relationships, it's not for grape quality," he states flatly. It's the kind of clarity that comes from watching one of Bordeaux's great estates—Château Margaux—maintain their chosen path across 27 generations. They don't chase fashion. They build their reputation through uncompromising consistency.

His 2025 vintage reds won't hit the market until 2028. Not because he needs time to craft a story, but because his wines need the time.. Meanwhile, he's sourced exceptional parcels maturing in barrel from CWG colleagues and other winemaker friends: a Cabernet from Bottelary, a remarkable Op die Tradoux Merlot, a cool microclimate anomaly in the Little Karoo where the altitude permits high-end grape and fruit production, and pea-sized Wellington Shiraz from premium terroir. These “buy-back” 2023 and 2024 bottlings will bridge the gap while his own vineyard selections age as needed.

The approach is surgical: buy the top five barrels from a property's 100-barrel production, blend sources if necessary, and polish without rushing. "The wine will get one chance to make the desired impression with customers, so let's make the right impression."

Expect wines built for the long game. Over the weekend, Carl opened a 2002 Hartenberg Estate Cabernet. Twenty-three years on, it hadn't started discolouring—still black and red, absolutely sublime, poised for another decade. That's the Solo Wines blueprint: collectable expressions that reward patience and deliver enjoyment across decades.

The Regenerative Revolution That Actually Works

Carl's environmental consciousness runs deep. His three career options coming out of school—deciduous fruit farming, forestry, and floral conservation—all centred on plants and ecosystems. Within weeks of joining Hartenberg, he was clearing alien vegetation from the 66-hectare indigenous wetland that forms the property's heart.

But environmental stewardship at Hartenberg wasn't a single leap. Over three decades, Carl orchestrated a methodical evolution from conventional agriculture toward something more sophisticated. Mixed seed cover cropping replaced monoculture. Undervine mulching became standard practice. The estate transitioned from sprinkler to microjet irrigation, then to drip systems. Working with Austrian hydrologist Eric Schmollgruber, Carl developed a closed-loop cellar and domestic effluent water system that to this day ensures complete water reuse back to the vineyard—a non-chemical model almost unique in agriculture and certainly groundbreaking.

Alongside Dr Gerhard Pietersen and Andre van Rensburg, Carl helped pioneer biological control for one of the global wine industry's biggest challenges: Leafroll Virus. The solution? Annual releases of endemic predatory insects that prey on the virus carrier, the mealybug. Natural warfare, elegantly deployed.

The real paradigm shift arrived about a decade ago with regenerative agriculture, and Carl draws a hard line: it's the future, not organic viticulture.

"Every symposium I've spoken at or attended, advocates of organic viticulture acknowledge the philosophy is littered with risk when it comes to financial viability," he argues. The evidence supports him—proponents routinely revert to standard practice in adverse weather vintages. The culprit? Copper-based sprays for annual mildew control. It's a heavy metal with legal limits in wine, accumulating in soils after centuries of use. When Italy's parliament recently withdrew organic food production subsidies due to disappointing yields, the writing was on the wall. The math doesn't work for food security or sustained business viability.

Regenerative agriculture, by contrast, delivered measurable gains at Hartenberg: 40% cost reduction over the four months when cattle enter the vineyards, elimination of weed spraying, zero fuel costs or man-hours for herbicide application, and three tonnes per hectare of natural compost from grazing cattle during dormancy. The key is precision timing and soil cover—hoofed animals on vegetated ground during appropriate moisture levels and timeframes avoid compaction while naturally managing weeds.

"If you hand it back to nature, it's cheaper, it's way more effective," Carl says. The goal was to prepare for a water-scarce future by increasing soil carbon levels. The water savings, still being quantified but proven in laboratory settings, will be the ultimate vindication.

Then came the kicker. Over three years, Carl ran trials comparing Shiraz parcels with and without cattle intervention. The wines from cattle-grazed blocks showed marked, positive differences. Better fruit, better wine. Nature wasn't just cheaper—it was delivering superior quality.

No one accused him of losing the plot. The science was sound. Industry scepticism gave way to grudging respect. After a decade and a half, the results speak louder than any manifesto.

The Code That Defines the Craft

Ask Carl about the "Carl Schultz factor", and he doesn't cite terroir mastery or fermentation techniques. He recites core values: honesty, integrity, humility, tenacity, work ethic, and resilience.

"I live by a code," he says simply. It's the code of someone who didn't inherit a wine farm or succeed a generation. Everything was earned through hard work, guided by principles that don't waver when circumstances shift.

Resilience is the newest addition, hard-won through upheaval. "It's hard to endure calamitous events and maintain one's dignity and come out a better person."

He loves teaching—he recently hosted a Shiraz tasting in Cape Town, not featuring his wines, just imparting knowledge. He's started consulting for a Stellenbosch property. Both Carl’s parents were teachers; sharing expertise feels like an inheritance of a different kind.

"If people look at the name in future or if they taste the wines, it should be about quality. Quality, hard work, honesty, integrity. That's what I'd be remembered for, hopefully."

The Legacy Bottled in Time

The only wine Carl genuinely mourns is Pontac, an ancient Bergerac variety brought to South Africa in the 1920s or 30s, possibly earlier by French Huguenots. He inherited a virused 1960s planting, fought for 12 years to secure clean material, planted a mother block, and made one or two vintages before leaving Hartenberg. That rebirth will happen without him.

But legacy isn't just what you finish. It's what you set in motion. Carl’s son Mark is learning the craft, meeting customers, and understanding that "the most valuable gift you can give a customer is your time." Perhaps one day, Solo Wines will carry a second name. For now, Carl's building something worth inheriting: wines that don't disappoint, that impress, that age to their betterment across decades.

The support has been overwhelming. Importers, family, private clients, and industry colleagues—relationships built over 35 years revealed their depth when tested. Several local distributors have taken Solo Wines on board before the wines were even bottled and before tasting.

"I'd rather sell out than be stuck with stock," Carl says, refusing to compromise brand image through desperate discounting. It's the same philosophy that guided 32 years at Hartenberg, now distilled to its purest expression.

Some calamities hide opportunities. Carl Schultz found his in the moment he stopped painting other people's pictures and started creating his own canvas. That first bottle won't carry decades of estate history, but it will carry something rarer: the unfiltered vision of a winemaker finally answering only to himself, the vineyard, and time.