Jens Hansen

CEO/Founder/Winemaker

Uva Furem was founded by two Air Force veteran brothers, Jens and T.J. Hansen, in 2018. Washington State’s 1000^th bonded winery, Uva is the only 100% disabled veteran owned winery in the country. 

Our story begins in 1995 when Jens was deployed to Italy flying peace keeping missions in Bosnia and Kosovo. Jens took every opportunity to visit local wineries and vineyards with his fellow Italian aviators. There are countless stories of Jens, throughout his 24 years of service in the US Air Force, of Jens exploring local wines even under (perhaps) dangerous conditions. As fate would have it, one of his last duty stations was Travis Airforce Base near Napa, CA. He walked into a local winery and asked if he could help out in the cellar. With a medical retirement imminent (10 deployments and quite a few sustained injuries from “hard landings”), the gears in Jens’ head began turning. Could his GI Bill benefits be used towards going back to school for winemaking? Turns out, yes!
 
 

Jens and his brother purchased an old honeybee farm on the side of a mountain in Maple Valley, WA and transformed the barn on the property into the production facility. 

Jens is indeed truly a Lucky Bastard, because while out smuggling more grapes to keep up with the Uva’s explosive growth, he met Wednesday, a winemaker in Eastern Washington. Besides having extensive winemaking experience, she also shared a military connection as a military spouse for over 10 years in a previous marriage. Crazy in love, Wednesday joined Jens on the mountain for the 2023 vintage, and the two plan on growing the Uva Furem brand together as a husband-and-wife winemaking team.

Wednesday Hansen

Head Winemaker

Wednesday is the heart of the winery, pictured here with the head of our HR department Reggie.

T.J. Hansen

Bung Plug Cleaner,  aka "The Brother" who said "sure" when asked if he wanted to start a winery...

Smells funny and always on a computer with his head in the clouds.