Chef

Karakasevic family

Winemaker

Discipline: Chef
Based in: St. Helena, California, United States

i. Biography

The family’s reference point is still the barrel, not the brand. The memory of customers coming to a vineyard in Yugoslavia to fill their own bottles from the cask describes a trade built on direct sale, patient stock, and a product good enough to be drawn off without ceremony. Before the labels and glassware, the work already relied on time, care, and consistency.

Coming Up

Europe was the formative school for Karakasevic family, and that early training set the terms for what followed: patience over haste, texture over flash, and process treated as craft rather than performance. Those priorities carried into 1983, when Karakasevic became founder at Charbay Winery & Distillery in St. Helena, California. The role was not just administrative; it marked the start of a long, exacting practice that gave the house its shape. Since 2011, Karakasevic has been master distiller of Charbay Distillery and owner of Charbay Winery & Distillery, keeping the same discipline in place across generations of work. The titles point to continuity as much as authority: methods retained, standards held, and a family approach moved forward without losing its original character.

Where They Are Now

The current bottlings show range without a break from that lineage. Green Tea Aperitif is a wine-based cocktail designed to sit cleanly over ice; Doubled & Twisted pushes whiskey into less expected territory by being distilled from finished beer; Brandy No. 89 stays on the restrained side of the spectrum; and Double-Distilled, Double-Aged Rum carries the mark of extended handling and layered development. Each sits within the same house logic, even when the style changes. The family’s own words make the method plain: "We don't believe in shortcuts. We take as long as it needs." That is a trade position, not a slogan. It says the work is governed by time, repetition, and an unwillingness to rush what should be built slowly.

Career - Master distiller — Charbay Distillery, Ukiah, California - Owner — Charbay Winery & Distillery, St. Helena, California (2011–present) - Founder — Charbay Winery & Distillery, St. Helena, California (from 1983) Education: Europe

Signature

Karakasevic's signature dishes include Green Tea Aperitif and 1983 Folle Blanche Brandy No. 83, Doubled & Twisted, Brandy No. 89, and Double-Distilled, Double-Aged Rum.

In Their Words “We don't believe in shortcuts. We take as long as it needs.”