In 1981, when the Brown family first purchased property tucked in the eastern hills of the Napa Valley, making wine was not part of the plan. Nonetheless, over the years, the 450-acre property has become a full estate winery, with all wines grown, produced and bottled on site.
“The Brown Estate brand is the work of my sister, my brother and me,” says Coral Brown, the middle sibling in the second generation of the Brown family, “but we never could have done it without our parents. They laid the groundwork and let us experiment, and ultimately turned control of the property over to us.”
Coral and her siblings – older sister, Deneen, and younger brother, David – now own Brown Estate Vineyards, located in the Chiles (rhymes with “miles”) Valley district of the Napa Valley.
“We’ve always been a close-knit group,” Coral says. “We have a wonderful collaboration and are members of a very fraternal community of farmers and winemakers in the area.”
Brown Estate’s hallmark is their well-regarded Zinfandel, the varietal that put them on the map. They also produce Cabernet Sauvignon, a very small quantity of Chardonnay and a number of specialty wines, including their recently released Chaos Theory Cabernet/Zinfandel blend.
“We developed our palates through our mother’s love for cooking and her genius for seasoning,” Coral says. “She always introduced new foods at the dinner table and was constantly challenging us to identify the various flavors in the foods she prepared. Consequently, my brother, sister and I developed a very well educated collective palate.”
“While we were making our first vintage of Brown Estate Zinfandel, my sisters and I would do blind tastings almost every day. It was an intense learning process,” adds David.
The Brown Estate label evolved from the family’s desire to own a farm. They were living in Southern California where Bassett Brown, a physician, and Marcela, a medical administrator, operated a clinic in an “underserved” area of Los Angeles. The senior Browns – he’s originally from Jamaica and she’s from Panama – met at Loma Linda Medical School and married 45 years ago.
In 1981, friends suggested that they visit a ranch for sale in the Napa Valley. “We drove onto the property,” Marcela recalls, “and said, ‘This is it!’”
“It” was a homestead that had been abandoned for 10 years and was overrun with oak and walnut trees. The dilapidated Victorian that stood on the property had been looted while uninhabited.
“When my wife and I bought the original parcel,” Bassett says, “the weeds were shoulder- high and a quarter of a million bats lived in the belfry of the house.”
Over time, the family restored the Victorian, adding a turret and rebuilding the chimneys, and refurbishing the parlor and dining room. The kitchen has been remodeled twice, most recently to accommodate catered events for Wine Club members.
“We have the best, and we believe the most diverse, group of Wine Club members in the Napa Valley,” Deneen says. “Our Wine Club has become a social hub where our members network and reconnect with old friends, and really become a part of our extended family.”
The Brown Estate Wine Club reflects a trend in wine clubs, wherein the focus is on community as well as wine. The Browns host frequent events. In September, Chef Thomas Keller’s Ad Hoc restaurant in Yountville catered a Roaring-themed release party at the winery for the new Chaos Theory blend.
“We had approximately 120 Wine Club members and their guests on hand,” Deneen says. “There was live music on the front porch of the house and a deejay in the tasting room. It was a fabulous evening.”
Special events held at Brown Estate typically begin on the great lawn in front of the residence or in the garden and gazebo behind the house. From there, guests pass through a spectacular 7,000-square-foot subterranean wine cave and end up in the tasting room in the lower level of the renovated 1859 stone and redwood barn. The tasting room was completed in 2002 and the cave in 2005.
“The cave connecting the house and the winery is a unique feature of our facility,” says Deneen. “It provides a nice flow for our visitors, and is very conducive to parties and celebrations.”
After renovating the Victorian, the Browns started planting what is now 50 acres of vineyards. The first 10-acre field devoted to Zinfandel was planted in 1985, and for 10 years, the family sold grapes to other winemakers. Eventually, Deneen and David decided it was time to make their own wine.
David, who majored in chemistry in college, learned to farm grapes in his late teens. He eventually took over vineyard management operations, and later benefited from an informal education in winemaking while apprenticing with several winemakers who had been buying Brown Estate fruit for many years.
Deneen majored in English literature at UC Berkeley, and has an instinctive business and marketing savvy. She conducted painstaking research while developing the Brown Estate brand. “I read a lot of books, talked to a lot of people and drank a lot of wine,” she says.
Coral, who attended medical school, had completed two years when Deneen and David called and urged her to join them in their budding winemaking enterprise. She did, and the siblings began selling wine under the Brown Estate label in 1996. Coral now manages the tasting room and travels to promote the brand in out-of-state and foreign markets.
“We focus on quality and don’t want to get too big,” says Bassett. Brown Estate produces 5,000 cases a year, and every aspect of the vineyard, winery and business operations is under direct family control.
“It was never my intention to live here fulltime,” says Marcela, who has become the gatekeeper at the winery. “But I really love it. I love the trees, the fog, the blue skies, the owls, the sunrises and sunsets, and the quiet.”
The winery is closed to the public, but the wines are sold in 25 states and Japan, as well as via the Internet (BrownEstate.com/club). Brown Estate is available in a few wine shops, including Roseville Cellars, and is featured at several restaurants, notably Biba and The Kitchen in Sacramento and The Martini House and Terra in St. Helena.
Last February, Charlie Trotter featured Brown wines at a dinner celebrating the 16th anniversary of his Chicago restaurant with Wolfgang Puck as guest chef. The Browns flew to Chicago for the event.
Every January the family attends the annual ZAP (Zinfandel Advocates and Producers) event at Fort Mason in San Francisco, the largest single varietal wine tasting in the world.
“ZAP is the best marketing tool we have,” says Deneen. “Zinfandel lovers are a fiercely loyal group, and we continue to have relationships today with customers who have been buying our wine since the first vintage.”
That original desire for a ranch certainly turned out to be a vision that many Zinfandel lovers can appreciate.
Brown Estate Wine Club
The Brown Estate Wine Club has grown to over 600 members in the nearly three years it has been in existence. “We have a very cosmopolitan group,” says Coral Brown. “Members visit from New York, Texas, Chicago, Hawaii, Nevada, Oregon, Georgia, Washington, D.C. and Virginia, as well as from Northern and Southern California. It’s like attending a family reunion.”
Membership in the Wine Club is available as wine supplies dictate. Members receive four shipments a year of primarily red wines, and perks include a 10 percent discount on wine purchases, invitations to members-only events and free admissions to Open House and Summer Series parties (BrownEstate.com/club).
