Through art and wine Jason Charles has somehow managed to carve out a path in life that allows him to spend time exploring the unknown while growing roots deeply into the community he calls home.
After a childhood spent in small-town Michigan, Jason flew the coup in search of discovery and new perspectives as soon as the opportunity arose.
He found himself teaching English in Spain in his early twenties - a period he looks back on fondly for the long evenings full of local tapas and wines, heartwarming crowds, and meals uninterrupted by the setting or rising sun.
“There I was, sitting at the table at 10 pm and drinking someone’s uncle's wines from the countryside. What I really related to was the idea of the story. The wine took on new meaning. It all seemed so real in a new way. This is the life I want to live. It felt right.”
He was bitten by the photography bug and as a photojournalist he explored the Spanish countryside where he spent countless nights drinking and eating with the locals.
With his camera in tow, he made his way back to the Americas where he did the same throughout Mexico.
Eventually the long and powerful tractor beam that emanates from Manhattan pulled him in. He spent the next few months waiting tables where he was surrounded by some of the world’s best wines.
As is often the case working in fine dining, there were more than a few opportunities for Jason to taste what would have been out of reach financially for a “struggling” artist.
Those moments solidified Jason's keen interest in wines generally, and specifically about the wines he was tasting and the stories behind these winemakers he was meeting from France.
He’d have flashbacks to those long evenings at the table in Spain and felt there was something he was just starting to grasp that was somehow more enriching and fulfilling than what he’d been chasing before.
So he set out for California. After winding in and out of the wineries and vineyards of Northern California he realized his path forward was in winemaking.
He spent the next few years working the vineyards and in the wineries of Napa and France.
In 2013, after a year in France he decided upon his return to California that it was time to start his own winery. Vinca Minor was born
Fruit prices in and around Napa, where he had previously worked, were too high for what he was trying to do and he wasn't much interested in making Cabernet anyway. So he looked further North.
He had heard of the old-vines in Mendocino county and once he went to take a look for himself he quickly realized that these dry-farmed, old vines and the rugged coastal landscape they were surrounded by were the perfect raw ingredients for the wine he wanted to make.
“Working in Napa we were working with young vineyards that were hooked up to water. That gives you tons of control. You know when you want to pick. Then you add acid. You make a grape in the winery. Producers liked that process. There is an ego involved in making that perfect wine and having full control over that. I had no interest in that though - I fell in love with the history of the vineyard, the characters that I met up in Mendocino farming. They have old vine Carignane. 85-year-old vines. Old school growers, no technology no chemicals. Simple but beautiful. It took me back to those nights in Barcelona. Everything felt simple and beautiful and poetic.”
Today Jason is working out of his new facility he co-owns with his wife in Berkeley, California. Besides the winery there is a small tasting bar where pre-pandemic (and currently in a limited capacity) you can saddle up and taste his wines.
Of all the wines he makes, the one below is by far his most requested. Known as “Chill Red,” the wine is always a blend of red and white grapes.
This year it’s Carignan, a Vinca Minor specialty, with 30% Sauvignon Blanc co-fermented into a luminous ruby red beauty.
Like all of his wines this is a joyful and lively affair. But behind all that fun is a seriously well made wine.
Upon opening there a surprising bit of reduction. It opens up quickly and uncoils with layers of bright and nervy fruit.
Red nectarine flesh, rainier cherry and mysterious melange of forest berries like lingon, cloud and huckleberry. Crisp acidity wraps around a textural core of piquant red fruit.
Unlike most natural quaffers, this develops and unspools over time. It is equally delicious the next day on the off chance one makes it through the night. Best served with a chill, obviously.
Naturally produced wines like this are such a pleasure. Clean and crisp, complex and full of pleasure, this should be on the top of everyone list of summer wines.
Vinca Minor, Mendocino Red Wine “Chill Red”, 2020