Pleasure from Payne

One of the best things about writing for Oregon Wine Press is the chance to get out and meet some of the local industry stars. I was invited to Ambar Estate’s gorgeous new tasting room where I met Kate Payne Brown. She graciously allowed me to write a profile of her for the March 2025 issue of the magazine. Since this writing, Kate has been named head winemaker at Argyle Winery.

"Think globally, act locally" isn’t just a mantra—it’s a way of life for Kate Payne Brown. Raised by “New Yorkers in Salt Lake City,” her far-flung formation as a vintner includes experiences in Australia and Burgundy. She blends her broad worldview, a knack for collaboration, and commitment to sustainable practices in her roles at the recently opened Ambar Estate and Vinovate Custom Wine Services in the Dundee Hills. Her passion for sparkling wine shines through in Dolores, a labor of love she shares with her husband, fellow winemaker Griffin Brown.

NEW VISION

Biology and chemistry studies at the University of Oregon first brought Payne Brown to the state, where she initially set her sights on a career in optometry. While working at an eye clinic in Beaverton, her deeper interest in wine was sparked by volunteer work at an urban winery in Portland. Around the same time, she met Griffin on a blind date.

A Nevada-bound motorcycle tour with Griffin and his father unexpectedly revealed more wine-world vistas. Payne Brown remembers a fellow traveler who spoke of a “grape consultant” he knew who “travels all over the world consulting on wine and grapes.” She was intrigued such a job existed.

Although now remembered only as a “friend of a friend,” Payne Brown credits that fellow rider with further opening her eyes to the global possibilities of working in wine. “He had this unknowing, pivotal role in my career.”

The encounter led Payne Brown to apply to the University of Adelaide’s competitive Master of Oenology program in Australia, which admits only 20 students annually and is located among five wine-producing regions. “[To be] thousands of miles away from everything else that you know, and being able to focus solely on one pursuit is such a gift,” she said.

The decision to head ‘down under’ accelerated plans for Kate and Griffin: “I remember I got in [the program] in December, my husband proposed in February, we got married in June, and we left three weeks after that. And so my entire life changed within the course of six months.”

BACK TO OREGON

After her graduate studies at Adelaide, Payne Brown and her husband returned to Oregon as harvest interns, intending to return to Australia. However, the internships led to permanent positions. Payne Brown was hired by Anna Matzinger, then winemaker and general manager at Archery Summit in Dayton, and eventually spent nearly six years as her assistant winemaker.

“She really proved her worth through her doing and her contributions,” recalls Matzinger, who especially remembers Payne Brown’s keen tasting skills. “Her ability to kind of ‘crystal ball’ and see: these are the wines now, but what could they be? And [then] come up with ways in which that could happen. It was just really fun to see that develop, and it was just a joy to taste with her.”

Kyriakos Kynigopoulos, a prominent wine analyst based in Burgundy, frequently visited Archery Summit and enlisted Payne Brown to work alongside him in the U.S. and France. Their association made possible multiple trips to Burgundy and Champagne, where she built relationships with vignerons. “I learned a lot from that,” she said, appreciating Kynigopoulos’ “wonderfully gentle way to lead and be thoughtful about winemaking.”

The globetrotting job spoken of on that long-ago Nevada motorcycle trip had finally found her.

Next came nine years as the reserve winemaker at Stoller Family Estate. Payne Brown led a small team of three that produced the brand’s premium cuveés and launched its sparkling wine program.

Winemaker Evan Rose, who Payne Brown hired as part of the team and who succeeded her in heading the group, remembers her meticulous attention to detail and commitment to teamwork.

“One of the beautiful things about it is that people’s palates are always different,” he observed. “She was always very thoughtful and respectful of the people she worked with, whether that was our small team here or our upper management.”

Rose values the “little Kate” he still hears on his shoulder, encouraging him to pause and “take it to the next level, really fine-tune things, and give the wines basically the respect that they deserve.”

AMBAR AND VINOVATE

A role in shaping two new Dundee Hills businesses recently enticed Payne Brown to assume fresh challenges.

Following a global legal career in mergers and acquisitions, which included representing publicly traded California wineries, Rob Townsend and his wife, Pam Turner, came to Oregon to found Vinovate Custom Wine Services and Ambar Estate.

Opened in 2023, Vinovate’s 24,000 sq. ft. winery, 50,000-case barrel room and 43-acre sustainable vineyard offer “grape-to-bottle” services for premium, small-lot brands, making both still and sparkling wines.

Nearby, Ambar Estate is the Willamette Valley’s first Regenerative Organic Certified vineyard, focused on Pinot Noir, Chardonnay, and sparkling wine. A new Japanese-inspired tasting room and hospitality complex designed by Signum Architecture overlooks the previously uncultivated acres.

Townsend knew recruiting a talented winemaking team was essential to the ambitious intentions and investment of the two new businesses. His lifelong friend Scott Baldwin, owner of De Ponte Cellars, suggested a meeting with Payne Brown.

“Pam and I had coffee with her,” he recalls, immediately finding her to be “warm and at the same time professional and curious and engaged – and a delightful person to spend time with.”

Payne Brown joins Bryan Weil, formerly of Alexana Winery, to head up the winemaking at Vinovate and Ambar. Working to grow the two endeavors allows her to deepen her respect for the land and craft wines that exhibit a distinct sense of place.

She describes nurturing Ambar’s new 20-acre vineyard as “beginning a conversation.” “For me, as a winemaker, my philosophy should always be the site before anything else,” she said.

The estate’s regenerative organic certification means committing to meticulous vineyard practices and promoting biodiversity. It also extends to social welfare, manifested in providing vineyard stewards with a higher wage than the industry standard.

According to General Manager Julie Mettille, the pay rate is based on a living wage survey they conducted. “How much they need to pay rent, to put food on the table for their family,” she explained, “not just a number that seems fair to us.”

If Payne Brown's concentration on Ambar’s vineyard resembles a conversation, the variety of fruit awaiting down the road at Vinovate’s custom crush facility would seem to present her with a vinous babel. She welcomes the challenge of supporting the company’s growing list of wineries, observing that “working with a lot of clients and a lot of vineyard sites, you get a broader view.”

CALL ME DOLORES

Payne Brown’s love of family, enthusiasm for sparkling wine, and global perspective form the heart of Dolores, her small-production project focused on traditional-method sparkling wine and Willamette Valley Pinot Noir.

The name is a multilingual wordplay that honors Payne Brown’s mother, Charlene Payne. A descendant of Filipino and Hungarian immigrants, she is fondly remembered as an adventurous soul who journeyed to Spain in the 1970s. There, she earned the nickname “Dolores” since ‘Payne [pain]’ translates to ‘dolor’ in Spanish.

Naming the brand coincided with the death of Payne Brown’s mother in 2016. “It was in that haze of grief that I remembered this conversation with my mom about the time that she lived in Spain,” she recounted. “I really grabbed on to that in the moment… I needed it to have this homage to my mother but also this air of adventure and creation to it. So that’s where it was born.”

The inaugural releases defy boundaries by including sparkling Pinot Gouge Blanc, a genetic mutation of Pinot Noir discovered in the Burgundian vineyard of Henri Gouges in the 1930s. Propagated there by Gouges, the rare variety eventually made its way to Oregon, where a few acres are planted. While other producers buy the fruit for still wines, Payne Brown crafts it into a singular sparkling wine.

“I always have loved sparkling wine from my time working in Australia and going to school there,” she affirmed.

DUNDEE AND THE WORLD

Payne Brown's two tenures at iconic Oregon wineries, education in Australia, and consulting work in France combine to form a local winemaker with a global outlook.

“Tasting with [Kynigopoulos] in Burgundy, and then tasting with my clients in the U.S. put me in a really unique position to look at wine from a lot of different angles and approach problem solving from a different way,” she notes.

“Kate just brings a sparkle to conversations and engagements, but she’s also very passionate about things that matter immensely to my wife and me,” said Townsend, citing her efforts to help Oregon develop a more diverse, sustainable wine industry. “One that will have even more reasons to occupy a place on the world stage.”