Soon to become the new master distiller at Charbay, Marko Karakasevic chuckles over an etching that depicts what his father Miles, the outgoing distiller, will be doing when he retires. John Lindblom photo
A still on the hill
Spring Mountain's Charbay Winery & Distillery
By John Lindblom
STAFF WRITER
Friday, July 31, 2009
Business > Local
Soon to become the new master distiller at Charbay, Marko Karakasevic chuckles over an etching that depicts what his father Miles, the outgoing distiller, will be doing when he retires.
While a couple of hundred Napa Valley wineries contest for cabernet sauvignon supremacy, the Karakasevic family goes about its business secure in the knowledge that it makes the world’s best Blood Orange, Meyer Lemon, Ruby Red Grapefruit, Pomegranate, Green Tea and Red Raspberry vodka.
That’s how it is when you’re the only distillery anywhere producing these spirits as the Karakasevics — Miles, his wife Susan, his son Marko and Marko’s new bride Jenni — do at their still on the hill.
There is no place quite like their Charbay Winery and Distillery, located about a third of the way up Spring Mountain. And definitely no one quite like Miles Karakasevic, one of only two men holding the station of master distiller in the U.S. (Herbert Germain-Robin of Mendocino is the other). Also rare are many of the 27 libations turned out by Charbay.
“We have more products than Baskin-Robbins,” boasts Marko.
“Not to be arrogant, but nobody else in this country is doing what we do,” said Miles. “We have so far produced every major class of distilled spirits of the world. The last notch is tequila and Marko and I spent the last three years in Mexico literally distilling our own tequila, which will be shipped from our Mexican distillery this coming month.
“At that point, I will retire and become the grand master distiller sitting in the sunlight and let Marko run the show.”
But it won’t be a simple matter of his just stepping down. Marko, in turn, has to step up by “meeting and exceeding” the standards of his instructor. In short, doing something his dad’s never done (which he will accomplish with a whiskey he created).
Miles Karakasevic became a master distiller when he was 18 years old and living in his home country of Yugoslavia (now Bosnia). He was the 12th generation in the succession of Master Distillers in his family dating to a quarter-century before America’s war of independence.
“I was born in the village of Mol,” said Miles. “One of the major battles between Islam and Christianity in the 17th century happened about five miles from my city. People have been doing three things there for 1,300 years: fermenting and distilling, raising pigs and fighting Islam, which is still going on today.”
That Marko would become the next-generation Master Distiller was preordained. “When he was born and brought from the hospital he was physically and literally in the wine business,” said Miles.
He was hands-on involved in the business by the time he was 10 years old.
“Dad would tell me what to do ... switch this valve, clean this, clean that. But you know I had a complete Eastern European apprentice program,” said Marko, who is 36.
Subtract Communist Russia’s impact on the former Yugoslavia and Marko would be in Eastern Europe. Miles’ family on both his father’s and mother’s side were well off when the Communists took it all away. His trail from there to here was a complexity that he describes as “five lifetimes.”
“I wanted to end up in the American sector in Munich and Bavaria when I was smuggled out of the country in 1962 at the height of the Cold War,” he recalled. “We dodged the bullets crossing Austria and going to Germany, which was still occupied by the Allied Forces.
“If I had come directly to the United States, they would have grabbed me by the collar and sent me to defend the country in Vietnam, which I didn’t feel was the right thing to do.”
So, arriving with $18 and a suitcase, he settled in Canada, where he spent five years in the Queen’s Army. He was detached from his industry because there were virtually no wineries in which to ply his profession. A sad state of affairs, given his degree in enology and viticulture from the University of Belgrade.
Miles ultimately crossed the U.S. border to stay in 1971, when he helped to establish Chateau Gran Traverse winery in Michigan. He got his start out west as an experimental winemaker for Beringer Brothers and eventually moved to the family’s 17-acre property on Spring Mountain from the central valley.
The name Charbay, Miles explains, originated in the ‘80s and is a derivation of the single product the family made at the time — the “char” from a classically made chardonnay and the “bay” from the brandy that came later.
All products thrown in, Charbay turns out about 10,000 cases a year, which Marko hopes to grow to 15,000 cases.
Theirs is a unique story.
“There is no other winery-distillery anywhere,” said Marko.
Charbay Winery & Distillery is now open seven days a week. The winery features their wines as well as ports and aperitifs made with the brandies that the family distills there.
No comments:
Post a Comment