Joe was born on June 25th, 1939 in Altadena California to Lois E Campbell (née Cordner) and Frederick Clarence Campbell. Joe grew up at his family’s motel in Hood River, Oregon and attended Hood River High School. Always a hard worker, Joe had 11 jobs before the age of 18 including working at the Lone Pine Motel, strawberry picking, setting pins at the bowling alley and driving spikes on the railroad.
Savor Willamette Valley and experience the collaborative spirit of the Yamhill-Carlton AVA with a curated trip from our friends at Savor & Cellar! Three days in the Valley will open the door to private vineyard tours and tastings, finely crafted meals and intimate encounters with winemakers who blend Old World tradition with New World innovation….
7 NIGHTS | APRIL 15 – 22, 2027 | ABOARD AMACELLO Discover Burgundy by River with three Willamette Valley wineries! Set sail through the heart of Burgundy alongside celebrated Willamette Valley wine hosts Gina Hennen of Adelsheim, Shirley Brooks of Elk Cove , and Guillaume Large of Résonance. This intimate river cruise explores charming towns such as Seurre, Tournus, Mâcon,…
Thank you to all of our wonderful Roosevelt Club members who joined us for the 2024 Collectors Club Dinner! We hope you had a spectacular time. Cheers!
“During the start of Oregon’s modern wine brands, these remarkable women stood shoulder-to-shoulder with their husbands, carrying out viticultural, production, tasting room and marketing duties while simultaneously raising children and working in other endeavors…”
We have a new look for the 2024 vintage of our Willamette Valley Pinot Noir Rosé, Pinot Gris, Pinot Blanc, & Riesling. It’s been over 20 years since we’ve made any design changes to our core wines, and during that time we have fielded many requests to modernize our look. We also want to make sure fans could recognize our bottles, so the changes are relatively subtle, rather than dramatic.
The 2024 vintage here in the Willamette Valley was a winemaker’s dream: well-paced with idyllic conditions for cool climate vineyards. The growing season started and ended cool and mild, with short heat-spikes in mid-summer. Winter and spring were wetter than average, giving the vines a head start underground. Budbreak in mid-April was followed by steady…
The 2023 Pinot Noir Five Mountain comes from 27- and 45-year-old vines planted in Laurelwood soils. Matured for 10 months in 20% new French oak, the nose is bursting with wild berries, blood orange, aniseed, damp earth, mushrooms and floral perfume. The full-bodied palate is concentrated and complex with detailed, spicy flavors. It’s structured by silky tannins and refreshing acidity and has a long, layered finish. 729 cases were made.
“A critical mass of vintners has devoted serious efforts to making fine Pinot Blanc, which in my view may be the world’s most under-estimated white wine grape variety.”
Silky and richly structured, with detailed flavors of raspberry and cherry accented by orange peel, cinnamon and toasty spice tones that linger toward supple tannins. Drink now through 2032. 729 cases made.
Supple and handsomely structured, this Pinot is plum with polished raspberry and cherry flavors accented by cinnamon and orange peel. Finishes with fine-grained tannins. Drink now through 2033. 729 cases made.
The dust has settled and Project Elevate The Estate is complete! We hope you’ll visit us soon and appreciate the beauty of our new space, the Elk Cove Estate Room! This modern, Northwest-style addition takes full advantage of our beautiful site tucked into the foothills of the Oregon Coast Range with high ceilings, big glass doors, and generous covered patios. You’ll want to see the views of La Bohème and our Founders Block.
“Rich yet graceful and well-knit, with lilting flavors of raspberry and blackberry that take on clove and tobacco accents as this builds structure and polish toward fine-grained tannins. Drink now through 2032.”
On Sunday of Memorial Day Weekend 2024, Pat and Joe Campbell spoke on the occasion of the 50th anniversary of planting their first grapevines at Elk Cove Vineyards at our 1974 Throwback Party on the Campbell lawn.
“The 2022 Pinot Noir Goodrich comes from marine sedimentary soils and was crafted with around 40% whole clusters. It has powerful, broody scents of red and black cherries, iron, mushroom powder and violet. The medium-bodied palate has a finely chalky texture and explosive, juicy fruit that lures you in for another taste. It becomes more complex and detailed as it opens in the glass and will benefit from 2-3 years in bottle.” – Erin Brooks
“The 2022 Pinot Noir Mount Richmond, from marine sedimentary soils, has deep scents of raspberry and blackberry preserves, rose petals, mushrooms, aniseed and earth. The light-bodied palate features perfumed, spicy berry fruit. It has a silky texture, fireworks of fresh acidity and a long, nuanced finish.” – Erin Brooks
“The 2022 Pinot Blanc is scented of white peach, yogurt, bread dough, cashew and spice. The light-bodied palate is rounded and soft, with generous, ripe, floral-laced flavors and a long, gently leesy finish.”- Erin Brooks
An aromatic mix of briar fruit matches up with tangerine and hyacinth aromas. The wine’s flavors are tart and bright, with rose hips, lemon and not-quite-ripe blackberries battling it out. Immense tannins are matched by laser beam-like acidity. Great value here.
“A lovely, delicate white, this blooms with fresh apricot blossom, nectarine and honeysuckle accents while gliding along the crisp finish.” – Wine Spectator
“One of my parents’ long term goals was always to be an estate winery – and only have grapes that we farm and own the vineyards ourselves, but it seemed like a pipe dream…”
“The Reserve is composed of the nine best barrels from Elk Cove’s estate plantings. It will require decanting in the short run and patience in the long run. Beautiful boysenberry, tangerine and anise-laced Thai basil aromas lead to flavors like tangy cranberry, raspberry and cinnamon. Drink 2025–2038. Cellar Selection.” – Michael Alberty
“Plush and elegantly built, with dynamic raspberry and cranberry flavors highlighted by notes of green tea and orange peel as this zips along the vibrant finish. Drink now through 2032. 396 cases made.” – Tim Fish, Senior Editor
“The grapes used to make this dazzler were whole cluster-pressed and fermented in stainless steel. Peach and melon aromas are flanked by notes of honeysuckle and wet slate. Jittery acidity shines a spotlight on rich lemon butter, thyme and green tea flavors. This is one of the best Pinot Blancs I’ve had in a long time. Editors’ Choice.” —Michael Alberty
In September 2023 we are breaking ground on new construction at Elk Cove, creating a modern, Northwest-style addition that takes full advantage of our beautiful site tucked into the foothills of the Oregon Coast Range. We are keeping our current tasting room, also known as the Roosevelt Room, however, the original octagonal tasting room built in 1981, which operated as our Retail Shop from 2020-2023, is going away. In its place, we’re constructing a larger rectangular building with clean lines, big glass doors, high ceilings and generous covered patios designed to feature the sweeping views of our vineyards.
Elk Cove winemaker Adam Campbell, son of founders Pat and Joe Campbell, makes a range of Pinot Noirs, but his dynamic Willamette Valley bottling is the most accessible in terms of price, case production and taste. It offers vivacious cranberry flavors with floral and citrus highlights. Campbell used grapes only from Elk Cove’s six estate vineyards and fermented the 2021 in small, open-top steel tanks before aging it for ten months in French oak.
If you could put strawberry blossoms into a bouquet you’d have a sense of how this pink bursts from the glass, bright, generous and expressive. Its flavors are round and juicy, exuberant with berry fruit that’s as red as its assertive color. Delightful with chilled prawns.
On this podcast, Adam covers first generation Willamette Valley pioneers, our new and existing plantings, Elk Cove geology, bonsai viticulture, the international perception of Oregon Pinot Noir, Willamette Valley enotourism and more.
Go behind the scenes and explore the Elk Cove grounds – wine glasses in hand! You’ll join a member of our hospitality team on an unforgettable two-hour tasting and tour across Elk Cove’s Winery Estate. Guests will stroll among some of the oldest vines in the Willamette Valley, take in sweeping vistas, and gain a peek into the cellar – all while sampling five limited-production wines from the Elk Cove estate.
“The 2021 Pinot Noir Roosevelt is intense and expressive this vintage. Medium ruby-purple, it opens with streaks of graphite and pipe tobacco accenting a core of crushed cherries and smoked meats. The medium-bodied palate is impressively concentrated yet offers soft, silky tannins and seamless acidity. It’s full of fragrant fruit and has a layered, spicy finish. It’s a touch more coiled than the other 2021s in this lineup and will benefit from 3-5 years in bottle.” -Erin Brooks
“The 2021 Pinot Noir Reserve is a barrel selection from several of Elk Cove’s vineyards. It has a medium ruby-purple color and savory aromas of red and black cherries, aniseed, pipe tobacco, flint and Christmas spice, continuing to unfurl aromatically as it airs in the glass. The light-bodied palate is chalky and refreshing with fragrant fruit and a long, latent finish. It feels particularly coiled and will benefit from 3-5 years in bottle.” -Erin Brooks
“The 2021 Pinot Noir Mount Richmond has a medium ruby-purple color and is scented of black cherry and plum, tobacco leaves, smoked meats and orange peel. The medium-bodied palate is silky and refreshing, with generous, perfumed fruit and spicy accents driving the long finish.” -Erin Brooks
“The 2021 Pinot Noir Goodrich was grown on marine sediment and made using 50% whole clusters. It has a medium ruby-purple color and layered aromas that disperse slowly from the glass: black cherries, prosciutto, aniseed, fir and Angostura bitters. The medium-bodied palate is savory and generous with concentrated, nuanced fruit, abundant, grainy tannins and loads of spicy accents that fan pleasurably across the finish. It’s a great candidate for 7-10 years in the cellar.” -Erin Brooks
“Medium ruby-purple, the 2021 Pinot Noir Clay Court has scents of wild berries, orange peel, charcuterie and forest floor with streaks of Christmas spice. The medium-bodied palate offers concentrated, layered fruit on a soft, juicy frame, and it has a long, spicy finish. It’s easy to drink now, but it will benefit from another 2-3 years in the bottle.” -Erin Brooks
“The 2021 Pinot Noir La Bohème has a medium ruby-purple color and deep scents of red and black cherries, forest floor, pipe tobacco and burnt citrus peel. The medium-bodied palate is surprisingly layered and nuanced, with loads of spicy accents and alluring floral perfume. It has a silky texture, energetic acidity and a very long, spicy finish. Offer it another 2-3 years in the bottle.” -Erin Brooks
“Medium ruby-purple, the 2021 Pinot Noir Five Mountain has deep aromas of cranberries, red cherries, black tea leaves, charcuterie and bitters. The medium-bodied palate explodes with concentrated, perfumed fruits. All that generosity is supported by silky tannins and bright, mouthwatering acidity that calls you in for another sip on the long, layered, spicy finish. What a lovely expression this vintage!” -Erin Brooks
“Harvested around October 15th, the 2020 Riesling Estate has gregarious aromas of grilled peaches, quince paste, honeycomb and petrol with wafts of flint. The light-bodied palate is focused and grippy, with about nine grams of residual sugar, exotic flavor layers and a gently leesy finish.” -Erin Brooks
An opulent texture and plush tannins pave the way for a pleasurable pinot experience. Aromatically, the Mount Richmond is a blackberry perfume mixed with violets and earthy forest floor characteristics. Flavors of boysenberry sorbet, Bing cherries, spearmint and a touch of cedar linger on a long finish.
A Clay Court performance worthy of Rafael Dadal. Dark strawberry and raspberry aromas are joined by the fresh smell of clean, lemony sheets hanging on the laundry line. Cranberry and raspberry flavors provide a nice sweet/tart combination to go along with the saline and crunch of Marcona almonds.
“Blackberries, fresh-cut grass and orange peel aromas are joined by a full-on earthy, rocky post-rain petrichor/geosmin experience. Rain and fruit—talk about quintessentially Oregon. The wine’s fuller-bodied flavors include black cherries, basil and grilled beets. Crisp texture, with tangy acidity and firm tannins. Editors’ Choice.”
“Expressive and vibrant, with pretty rose petal and raspberry aromas that open to multilayered orange peel and stony mineral accents. Builds structure toward refined tannins.”
“A compelling Pinot, richly refined and expressive, with polished raspberry and cherry flavors and hints of forest floor and spiced cinnamon. Concludes with supple tannins.”
“a juicy mash-up of ripe summer berries that makes me think of summer pudding, but it comes with wonderfully fragrant black-pepper fragrance and cardamom spice, a little mycorrhizal-mushroom under-earth earthiness. The sweetness of dark cherries swirls through the mid palate, picking up the furl of driftwood texture, and then slides into a silky finish.”
“This draws from all six estate vineyards, and one sniff erases all the smoke and angst of the 2020 vintage. It’s fresh and fragrant with mixed berries, particularly flavors of just-picked marionberries, and lively with minerally acids. It spent 10 months in barrel, just long enough to pull itself together and add a gentle touch of caramel to the finish.”
“Plush and elegantly structured, with attractive raspberry and guava flavors accented by forest floor and toasty spices. Finishes with polished tannins. Drink now through 2030.”
Elk Cove Vineyards owner and winemaker Adam Campbell joined AM Extra to talk about changes during the pandemic, how the growing season has been, some of their popular wines and how people can visit.
Elk Cove pinot noir from the Willamette Valley in Oregon is a wine with silky integrated tannins and supple red fruit. The mix of soils in the region, including sandstone and basalt, according to Forbes, gives the wine a mineral-driven finish that keeps it feeling focused on the palate. This wine will pair with many styles of salmon, but we love it with sushi for an out-of-the-box pairing.
Sleek and expressive, with handsome raspberry and guava flavors accented by rose petal and orange peel as this glides toward polished tannins.
Supple and fleshy in texture and elegantly layered with raspberry, fresh violet and spiced cinnamon flavors that dance agilely toward silky tannins.
Bubbles bounce around the glass like tiny tots jacked up on holiday cookies. The wine’s hunger-pang-inducing aromas of warm sourdough bread, raspberries and Meyer lemons lead to bright red cherry and lemon pastille flavors.
Women in Wine 2022 Conference: One of the sessions addressed how generations connect with each other. Pat Campbell shared life and career advice for young women seeking to start a career in the world of wine.
“The hottest brand in the U.S. wine industry is Oregon pinot noir, and no one does it as well at such scale — 20,000 cases — as the Campbell family. Think of a slice of cherry pie sprinkled with allspice, and layers beyond.”
Harvest is a full-on work experience. It’s monotonous, thrilling, exciting, you don’t see or do much outside of work, yet the camaraderie and that singular focus for the whole team is very addictive!
Our 2018 La Bohème Brut Rosé was awarded BEST SPARKLING WINE. Great Northwest Wine conducts a one-of-a-kind wine competition each October where influential wine professionals nominate and blind taste Pacific Northwest wines.
Our 2021 Pinot Noir Willamette Valley was awarded a Double Gold by the Great Northwest Invitational Wine Competition!
…Pear and peach flavours are joined by hazelnuts on the rich, full palate. The wine’s zippy acidity is like a surprise ending to a movie.
Hear what Winemaker/Owner Adam Campbell has to say about the fruit set on a visit to our Mount Richmond Vineyard
“…this wine is lovely: great fruit (black cherry), floral (red rose), floral (violet), and earthy (well, earth). Incredibly balanced on the palate, this is a deliciously affordable Pinot. Whoa.”
“The 2020 Elk Cove Vineyards Estate Willamette Valley is a very well-balanced, full-body pinot with lots of red fruits and violet notes.”
Elk Cove co-founders Pat and Joe Campbell sat down with David Adelsheim to talk about the early days of Oregon wine and their motivations for starting one of the first 10 wineries in Oregon’s Willamette Valley. Thank you to David Adelsheim for recording these stories!
“With some of the oldest Pinot Gris vines in the Willamette Valley, Elk Cove’s date back to 1985. Whole-cluster-pressed and cool fermented in stainless steel tanks, the aromatics sing with apricot and tangerine. There seems to be a charge of electricity in the wine, pizazz from lime zest, floral notes of honeysuckle and greener notes of basil and thyme”
“The 2020 vintage yielded a smaller than normal crop, and it was also a vintage that was threatened by smoke from wildfires. A melange of the winery’s 6 estate vineyards, this Estate Pinot apparently escaped all damage and in fact exudes nothing but charm and elegance.The wine is immediately appealing with its lovely aromas of cherry, raspberry and cloves. On the palate it is smooth, delicate and velvety, and the flavors emphasize youthful cherry fruit and lead to an intriguing earthy, oaky background. The finish is savory and juicy.”
A casual tasting of vintage wines brings together veteran Oregon winemakers.
This outstanding effort uses all estate-grown grapes. It’s got mineral-drenched acids that bring mountain spring freshness to delicate strawberry fruit. The wine hits the tongue and you just have to smile it’s so good. Let it roll on through and you’ll find exceptional length and detail follow.
At Elk Cove we’re massive Thorns fans – and not just because of our proximity to Soccer City USA (Portland). We have a years-long connection to defender Kelli Hubly, a Thorns Football Club star, six-year professional soccer player and fan of our Clay Court Pinot Noir. Kelli recently came back to Elk Cove with wine…
Cranberry, blackberry and black cherry ring loud and clear, with appealing wet-stone minerality in the background. The fruit flavors are so front loaded and intense that it’s easy to miss the inherent angularity and overall finesse of the wine. It’s structured and fine-tuned for aging.
“A wine that starts out with a lean herbal scent, like mint and thyme combined, this takes on a caramelly weight with air. It’s substantial, in need of a meal, like roast chicken or duck. 91 points.”
Five Mountain Vineyard sits on Laurelwood soil in the Chehalem Mountains AVA and is home to winemaker Adam Campbell and his family. Learn more about Five Mountain in this short video produced by the team at Elk Cove.
While we don’t always make it to the coast to go crabbing ourselves, sitting around the table shelling cooked crab from the fishmonger is also a great way to catch up while anticipating the great meal ahead, usually while savoring a glass of what we in the Campbell family call “cooking wine” (wine poured for the cooks).
Goodrich Vineyard, in the Yamhill-Carlton AVA, is our warmest vineyard site here in the Willamette Valley and home to our longhorn cattle. Goodrich Vineyard was planted in 2007 with Chardonnay and Pinot Noir in high-density format. The property boasts the exact same marine sediment (Willakenzie) soil as our Mount Richmond property and lies just a few miles from our Winery Estate Vineyard.
Now through February 2021 Elk Cove Enthusiast or Collectors Club members can skip the three-year waitlist and join the Members-only Multnomah Whiskey Library club!
You’ll also get $50 off the first year of MWL membership, $50 in Elk Cove wine and the opportunity to nominate other members to the Multnomah Whiskey Library.
Our vineyards are multigenerational – and not just because Elk Cove is in the second generation of the Campbell family. We’ve also grown several generations of our original 10 acres of Pinot Noir using a traditional viticultural technique called Selection Massale. In 1974, Pat and Joe Campbell planted our first 10 acres of Pinot Noir…
Our 2019 Pinot Gris is #10 in Wine Enthusiast Magazine’s Top 100 Wines of 2019. This is our third year in a row on this prestigious list! Wine Enthusiast’s tasting panel reviewed more than 25,000 wines from around the globe, exploring a multitude of regions, styles and price points. “Adam Campbell’s Pinot Gris is one…
“Adam Campbell of Elk Cove is known for his complex, terroir-driven, single-vineyard Pinots, but his basic estate bottling is no less appealing. Floral on the nose, it offers substantial flavor without weightiness, ending with a hint of peppery spice. If you like this one, you may well find yourself investing in his single-vineyard bottlings, too.”
Thank you to all of our wonderful Roosevelt Club members who joined us for the 2024 Collectors Club Dinner! We hope you had a spectacular time. Cheers!
Owner/Winemaker Adam Campbell gives us an update on Vintage 2025 on September 12th, right at the beginning of harvest. Themes for the year are an early harvest, small clusters and berries and fewer seeds in Pinot noir. What will the wines be like? We have some work to do before we can really judge, but we’re feeling optimistic so far!
The 2024 Elk Cove Vineyards Estate Pinot Gris shows a pale straw color with a subtle green tint. Its aromas lift from the glass with fresh garden herbs and dried citrus peel. Smooth and mouth-coating on the palate, the wine finishes dry and clean. From one of Oregon’s most respected producers of Pinot Gris, this estate-grown offering is an exceptional match for toro sashimi or a refined selection of Hamachi and Kampachi.
Owner/Winemaker Adam Campbell gives us an update on Vintage 2025 on September 12th, right at the beginning of harvest. Themes for the year are an early harvest, small clusters and berries and fewer seeds in Pinot noir. What will the wines be like? We have some work to do before we can really judge, but we’re feeling optimistic so far!
Thank you to all of our wonderful Roosevelt Club members who joined us for the 2024 Collectors Club Dinner! We hope you had a spectacular time. Cheers!
Share wine, celebrate friendship and focus on the in-person connection this October.
The hang time, the ability to stay on the vine longer ’cause the weather’s cooler – we don’t have to rush out and pick because the weather’s too hot – that kind of nice end of the season is where you really get full flavor development, intensity of fruit, and length on the palate, which are the three kind of hallmarks of great wine.
Our 2022 Holiday Catalog includes new releases, Elk Cove favorites, top-reviewed Single Vineyard Pinot Noirs and more