Filet-O-Fish pairs nicely with an oaked Chardonnay. In-N-Out’s “animal style” burger tastes best with a Brunello di Montalcino. And Panda Express orange chicken? Sauternes, naturally: a golden dessert wine with the honeyed heft to stand up to a sticky glaze.
These were the wine pairings Kara Du (JD 2021) curated for a tasting event welcoming Sheppard Mullin’s 2026 summer associates.
“It was a blast. Everybody loved it,” says Du, 28, a healthcare M&A associate in the firm’s Century City office. A formidably credentialed sommelier, Du matched a serious pour with a half-dozen popular American fast-foods, including Domino’s cheese pizza slices.
Du belongs to Generation Z, an age group that drinks less wine than any before it.
“I take it as one of my missions in life to introduce wine to my generation,” she says. “It isn’t just a beverage. There’s a whole culture and heritage behind wine.”
In September, Du prepared a “wine etiquette 101” event for USC Gould recent alumni. The workshop, held in Sheppard Mullin’s offices, covered essentials like stemware selection, appropriate serving temperatures and an introduction to the basic tasting vocabulary.
Du is happy to share her oenological knowledge with attorneys of all ages and demographics.
“I curate every event around who is in the room,” Du says.
For a women lawyers’ event, she recently cued up a chocolate and wine tasting. “My mission statement is really to bring more people into wine,” she says.
A Real-Life “Drops of God”
Du’s road to Dionysian evangelism began early. She was born and raised in China’s Shandong province, a region famous “for its hospitality and its capacity for drink,” she says, smiling. Her father, a man of esoteric tastes, has nursed a deep and abiding fascination with wine, quietly amassing knowledge for decades.
“My story is basically a real-life ‘Drops of God,’ though not that intensive,” Du says. Fans of the Emmy Award-winning Apple TV series — about a French woman trained from childhood to identify wines blindfolded — will recognize the basic plot.
Her education began when her father would line up glasses, blindfold her and dip a chopstick in each. Her task was to call the wines. Red fruit or black fruit? Old World or New World? Which grape, which region? Cedar or fruit forward? How “grippy” the tannins? How full the body?
“When I was little, I didn’t understand what this even was,” she recalls. “It didn’t make sense until I got older.”
The game continues to this day. When Du visits her parents now, she packs a few interesting bottles, and the blind tastings resume in their backyard. Her father, whom she calls a “no-frills enthusiast,” knows a great wine when he tastes one.
But Du is now the expert, a wine scholar who can explain why 2015 was a benchmark Burgundy vintage.
The Transactional Life
A prodigy in the tasting room, Du was no less precocious in the classroom. She started college at 16, arriving in the United States alone and moving into the freshman dorm at University of Pittsburgh.
“It’s a story I love telling,” she says. “A little girl with no family or friends here, determined to pursue a legal career.”
Raised on law dramas like “The Good Wife” and “Suits,” Du knew she wanted to be a transactional attorney. At Pitt, she double-majored in political science and communication. A scholarship took her to University of Minnesota Law School, but after her 1L year she decided the Twin Cities weren’t the best launchpad for a big-market deals career. So Du transferred to USC for her last two years, drawn by Southern California’s world-class legal milieu and encouraged by a cousin studying at the USC Alfred E. Mann School of Pharmacy.
At USC Gould, Du put her Mandarin fluency to good use as a teaching assistant in the LLM program, helping international students bridge two languages and legal systems. She was a summer TA for a course in healthcare compliance, which would become her area of legal specialization. She was recognized for her public service at USC with the Shattuck Award. A summer internship with Sheppard Mullin paved her career path.
Now a sixth-year associate, her practice centers on public and private M&A, chiefly private equity investment in healthcare services, health IT and physician practices, along with regulatory counseling for physicians.
Wine Bar Meets California Bar
Her wine-tasting practice has evolved in lockstep with her legal practice. Du passed the Wine & Spirit Education Trust (WSET) Level 2 exam while still in law school.
Earning the WSET Level 3 “Advanced Certificate” was every bit as difficult as studying for the California bar, Du says. “It tests the knowledge in your head, your tongue and your nose.”
To pass, she needed to decode obscure labels and display arcane knowledge of how Napa growers combat morning frost. The finale: a blind tasting. Unlabeled glasses and blank note cards demanding each wine’s origin, grape, structure, acidity, alcohol, aging potential and quality. She recalls struggling with a “noble” Chilean wine that nobody drinks anymore.
She’s since achieved the rank of “Certified Sommelier,” awarded by the Court of Master Sommeliers. That certificate stresses proper wine service (“What’s the best way to decant a sediment-filled 1965 bottle?”)
Du’s latest oenological achievement: earning the Certified Sherry Wine Specialist certificate from the Wine Scholar Guild. It denotes mastery of the centuries-old Solera system used for fractional aging and blending of spirits.
Sommelier de la Maison
Today, besides her high-stakes legal work, Du is the unofficial in-house sommelier at Sheppard Mullin and her events are a hallmark of the firm. She organized a wine tasting in her first weeks on the job and has continued to curate one or two events a month for colleagues and clients. In October, she arranged a 100-person tasting for a legal summit hosted by the firm.
“I realized I could combine my legal practice with my sommelier skills organically and make each better,” she says.
In August, Law360 published Du’s article, “Being a Sommelier Makes Me a Better Lawyer.”
“I genuinely believe that what you do outside the office shapes who you are inside it,” she says, in a video sidebar to the article.
Wine has opened doors to “circles I never thought I could enter,” the young lawyer notes. For example, at the Association for Corporate Growth’s annual dealmakers’ wine night, participating firms curate their own pours. Year after year, Du’s table is consistently recognized as the best, and heavy hitters line up to speak with her.
Domestic Blend
Wine has played a pivotal role in Du’s personal life, too. She met her husband, Scott, an L.A.-based engineer, at a bring-your-own Burgundy dinner. Du got starry eyed when she saw the single-vineyard bottle tucked in his arm — so rare that fewer than 10 are believed to be in existence.
Wine remains at the center of their married life.
“We sometimes do themed tastings at home,” Du says, “or we invite friends over for little tasting parties. Sometimes we go to restaurants, order wine for each other, and make the other person taste it blind. It’s a lot of fun and brings us closer.”
Burgundy is Du’s favorite region, and Pinot Noir her favorite grape, though she has a penchant for vintage champagne, old bold Bordeaux and Sauternes. Her favorite labels: Dom Perignon P2, Château Haut-Brion and Château d’Yquem.
Du says the quality of a bottle of wine is irrelevant to its price tag. She doesn’t have particularly expensive taste. Her break point is around $50. There’s a huge quality gap between a $5 bottle and a $50 bottle, she says, “but the difference between a $50 bottle and a $500 bottle is significantly smaller. It’s largely driven by emotion, culture and reputation.”
From Sipping to Chipping
But for Du, life is not only about work and wine. Setting aside the corkscrew, she reaches for her irons and wedges. “I’m a big golfer,” she says.
She first picked up the clubs during Covid and plays as time permits with friends, including a small group of lawyers, USC classmates, colleagues and faculty. But Du also plays alone.
“It’s so immersive, like meditation. I can focus on just that little ball,” she says.
Unlike wine and the law (where there’s no room for error), golf can be quite forgiving.
“You make a mistake. You reflect on that a minute, and move on. There’s always the next swing,” Du says. Golf also teaches resilience and humility, she adds. “If you get too proud of your perfect swing, the next shot can be a total mess. I like that.”
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