“The wine is not about me,” says Jessica Gasca of her brand, Story of Soil. “That’s why I don’t put my name on the bottle. It’s about the place where it’s grown. It’s my job to tell you that story: the vintage, the microclimate, the place. That’s what I’m trying to do, to let you know as a consumer where it’s from and what it’s about.”
Gasca’s story begins among the pines of Lake Arrowhead, where she was born, but begins to blossom in New York City, where she moved in 2003 after getting a psychology degree from Cal State L.A. While pursuing big city dreams, Gasca helped open a restaurant, where the resident sommelier taught wine classes every Tuesday.
“That sparked my interest,” she explained. “The amount of knowledge he had about a simple beverage just blew me away.”