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The House

The people behind 00 Wines

00 Wines is a family house of handcrafted, rare and fine wines. Chris and Kathryn Hermann founded 00 Wines in 2015 with Chris’s father, Dr. Richard Hermann, a professor of forestry at Oregon State University and globally recognized botanist specializing in the growth of Douglas Fir trees. Today, a small team of dedicated craftspeople produce the wines in Oregon and France, working alongside partners in Burgundy and Champagne.


Chris Hermann

Founder and Winemaker

Chris Hermann

Founder, Winemaker

Chris grew up in the Willamette Valley, the son of Dr. Richard Hermann, a forestry and botany educator. Botany and ecological research were part of family life from the start.

He went on to spend more than 35 years as a lawyer for the wine industry. When he began, almost no attorneys handled winery work, and Oregon’s wineries came to know him as the lawyer who did. He advised people starting wineries and winemakers buying their own, and in the early 1990s he guided Tualatin Vineyards through its merger with Willamette Valley Vineyards.

He wrote The Law of Wine – Oregon, a guide to the legal side of running a winery in the state. He has also represented producers from France, Italy, Germany, Australia, New Zealand, South Africa and Korea as they bought and ran wineries and vineyards in Oregon, California and Washington.

Those decades gave him a close view of how Oregon’s leading estates were built. In 2015 he founded 00 Wines with Kathryn Hermann and his late father, who was 91 when the winery launched. Chris makes the wines and chooses the vineyards they come from, working with Chardonnay and Pinot Noir from the Willamette Valley, Burgundy and Champagne.

His account of the Oregon wine industry’s early decades was recorded in 2021 for the Oregon Wine History Archive.

This is about pushing Chardonnay to its capacity and giving Pinot its voice in a place like Oregon.

Chris Hermann

Running the house


Kathryn Hermann

General Director

Kathryn Hermann

Kathryn comes from a family that has lived in the forests of Maine for many generations.

Her first career was in technology, where she worked in marketing, project management and software development. She chose to leave that career behind and return to her roots, living and working in nature.

In 2015 she founded 00 Wines with Chris and his father, Dr. Richard Hermann. As General Director she runs the winery’s operations and oversees the brand, packaging and creative work, along with sales strategy in each market where 00 Wines is sold.

Kathryn is also an avid hand knitter. She specializes in pieces for working in the winery, knitted from handspun and heirloom wool.

Maxence Lecat

Director of Global Winemaking

Maxence Lecat

Maxence is a French-born oenologist. He holds a master’s degree in viticulture and oenology, earned in Dijon.

In Burgundy he was mentored by one of the region’s most technically gifted makers of white wine.

He first came to 00 Wines in 2017 and made the wines alongside Chris through 2018. That year he returned to Europe to start a family.

In 2022 he rejoined the company in a new role, leading production on both continents. He now oversees winemaking in the Willamette Valley, Burgundy and Champagne.

Maxence lives in Baden, Germany, with his partner and two daughters.

Where we work

France

Burgundy

Made at Château de Bligny-lès-Beaune with Guillaume Lafon and Pierre Meurgey.

Our work in Burgundy

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