the winemaker

Meet Brad McLeroy

Brad McLeroy crafts his wines to give a voice to the soil. It’s a relationship that begins in the vineyard, from the first sign of bud break to the last cluster harvested. Prior to Brad and Kathleen’s move to Oregon, Brad owned a wine shop in Kansas City, Missouri. Upon his arrival in Oregon, Brad sold wine for a small distributor and honed his winemaking skills at the famed Domaine Drouhin Oregon. Under the direction of Véronique Drouhin, Brad worked the 2000 through 2006 harvests, serving as the cellar master for the last three years. In 2006, Brad left Domaine Drouhin Oregon to become Ayres Vineyard’s full-time winemaker. Brad brings a wealth of knowledge and experience from his work as a retailer, distributor, and now producer of wines.

Meet Kathleen

Behind every great winemaker, is a great woman holding a great big space, raising some great kids, and overall making sure all the greatness can find its way into the world. That’s how the story goes at Ayres, anyway.

Kathleen is, by her own admission, an accidental vineyard owner. She never mapped this out. She came from a career in speech-language pathology, got engaged to Brad in the south of France, hatched a crazy plan on day two, and somehow ended up with 36,000 vines as her backyard and the most spectacular sunrises and sunsets she's never gotten used to.

For a long time her full-time job was raising two kids in that backyard. Now those kids have flown the nest — and Kathleen is fully back, connecting with the customers she genuinely loves hearing from. Where are you visiting from? How did you first find Ayres? What are you celebrating? She wants to know. And she will reply to your email faster than you think is humanly possible.