Charles Bieler: Wine Collaborator

These 40 up-and-comers—all 40 years old or younger—are changing the way Americans eat and drink, from a vodka distiller who rewrote Nebraska's Prohibition-era laws to a White House chef who's fiercely fighting to improve school-lunch programs.

Charles Bieler: Wine Collaborator

Photo © John Benson.

A visionary marketer and compulsive collaborator, Charles Bieler, 35, takes what could be pure gimmick—selling good Cabernet in a screw-top jug, for example—and turns it into a bona fide opportunity for worthy wines. In the last few years, he has co-released a mezcal with Richard Betts, wine director at the Little Nell in Aspen, Colorado, and teamed up with Long Island winemaker Bruce Schneider to put Riesling from New York's Finger Lakes in kegs—helping to launch the wine-on-tap trend at restaurants.