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.... Read More

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.”

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.

Today Jason is working out of the new facility he co-owns with his wife in Berkeley, California.