The innovative winemaking hub welcomes Partner and Sparkling Winemaker Kate Payne Brown and Assistant Winemaker Aaron Fox
Dundee, Oregon (July 24, 2023) — Vinovate Custom Wine Services, the Willamette Valley’s new premier custom crush winemaking facility, estate vineyard, and enology think tank has announced two exciting new additions to its winemaking team. Leading Oregon winemaking veteran Kate Payne Brown joins the Vinovate team as Partner and Winemaker, and Aaron Fox, previously of Alexana Winery and Stoller Family Estate, has been hired as Assistant Winemaker. Payne Brown and Fox complete Vinovate’s winemaking team, headed by Managing Partner and Winemaker Bryan Weil, who will also lead the custom crush facility’s day-to-day operations.
Located in the heart of the Dundee Hills AVA, Vinovate was founded to satisfy the need for a modern Willamette Valley winery driven by top-tier winemakers and solely dedicated to custom crush wines of the highest quality, an aim further supported by the addition of Payne Brown and Fox.
Kate Payne Brown comes to Vinovate from Stoller Family Estate where she served for nine years as the winemaker of the brand’s Reserve Winery. Payne Brown led the launch of the winery’s sparkling wine program and grew Stoller’s ‘Legacy’ wine portfolio, the finest wines in Stoller’s collection.
At Vinovate, Payne Brown will craft still wines of the highest quality and will oversee the winery’s custom crush sparkling wine program, a unique and in-demand service the Vinovate team is proud to offer its partners. As part of Vinovate’s sparkling winemaking offerings, disgorging equipment, used to remove yeast, and to cork and label wines already through the tirage stage, will arrive later this year. This technology will allow Vinovate to help clients with partially-finished sparkling wines beginning in January of 2024.
Payne Brown is particularly excited to help raise the bar for sparkling wine statewide in her new role: “the Willamette Valley has immense potential to be among the world’s top destinations for sparkling wine,” she says. “Vinovate offers new and established brands the means to add high quality sparkling winemaking to their offerings, something I’m deeply passionate about and looking forward to leading for our clients.”
Also by way of Stoller Family Estate, Aaron Fox joins the Vinovate team as Assistant Winemaker. Fox worked closely with Bryan Weil as Harvest Assistant at Alexana Winery in 2016, and with Payne Brown at Stoller beginning in 2017, where he was hired as Cellar Master and was later promoted to Assistant Winemaker. “It’s an honor to not only join Vinovate, one of the Willamette Valley’s most exciting and innovative winemaking teams, but to do so with a long-trusted colleague in Kate,” said Fox. “I am very much looking forward to the 2023 harvest, to working with Bryan and Kate, and to providing Vinovate’s clients with a seamless custom crush experience.”
Vinovate is nearing completion of its 24,000-square-foot winery, which will be operational for the 2023 harvest. The winery will use only the highest standards in technology and design and feature a two-story, gravity-flow facility with an elevated crush pad and ample climate-controlled fruit chilling areas, allowing the winemaking team to expertly manage concurrent client vineyard picks during the busy harvest season.
In addition to offering custom crush services, Vinovate’s forty-acre estate vineyard is now fully planted, a meaningful milestone in the company’s growth. As part of the winery’s commitment to sustainability and environmental stewardship, Vinovate has embarked on the process of obtaining certification of its Regenerative Organic practices. The facility utilizes solar power, rainwater collection, and wastewater recycling, while vineyard stewards have enlisted the help of grazing animals to clear invasive vegetation, and manage cover crop and grass fields in the place of engine-powered machines. The certification of Vinovate’s Regenerative Organic practices is expected to take three years.
Vinovate’s client roster has grown as anticipation of the September 2023 opening mounts, and new clients join a diverse and respected collection of existing brands, including luxury newcomer Ambar Estate, popular boutique wineries Rain Dance Vineyards and Bellinger Estates, and esteemed iconic Knudsen Vineyards. Weil says in Vinovate’s first year of operation he is intentionally limiting the 2023 client list below facility capacity to ensure exceptional service to Vinovate’s inaugural client list.
“We built Vinovate to change the experience of custom crush winemaking,” he says. “With the addition of Kate and Aaron, our clients will have access to the highest quality winemaking possible. I couldn’t be prouder of the growth we’re seeing in our team, in our client relationships, and in our facilities. We’re perfectly positioned to make truly world-class wines for our clients this fall, and for many years to come.”
For more information, please visit vinovatewineservices.com.
About Vinovate Custom Wine Services
Vinovate is the Willamette Valley’s premier winery, estate vineyard, and enology think tank focused on small-lot custom crush winemaking, a method that connects people who want to make wines of unparalleled quality with the expertise, equipment, and resources to do so. Vinovate was founded by longtime contributors to rural Oregon’s cultural and economic landscape, Rob Townsend, Pam Turner, and Scott Baldwin, and celebrated Oregon Winemaker Bryan Weil. Together, they are changing the perception of custom crush winemaking in the Willamette Valley, offering all the collaboration of great custom crush agreements with more cohesion and without the chaos. Vinovate’s state-of-the-art winemaking facility will eventually produce 25,000 to 50,000 cases of still and sparkling wines annually and aspires to be an incubator for best practices in sustainability, diversity, and quality winemaking. Opening in time for the 2023 grape harvest, Vinovate has already announced it will work with historic Willamette Valley producer Knudsen Vineyards, highly anticipated newcomer Ambar Estate, and beloved boutique brands like Rain Dance Vineyards and Bellingar Estates.
