Dobbes Family Estate

Joe Dobbes grew up helping his father tend the family vineyard between Molalla and Mount Angel. He trained in Germany and France, came home to work with Elk Cove and Ken Wright among others, took over winemaking at Hinman Vineyards in Eugene, then spent six vintages as head winemaker at Willamette Valley Vineyards from 1996 to 2001 — a period he calls his graduate school. Wines from that stretch included a Wine Enthusiast Top 100 of the World Pinot and a Tualatin Estate Muscat served at the White House.

In 2002 he struck out on his own with $50,000 of his own money and an equipment loan, persuading his former employer to let him make wine at the Tualatin Estate facility. Dobbes Family Estate and twenty custom-crush clients formed the base. Wine by Joe launched the following year, Jovino in 2005, and by then he’d secured a large facility in Dundee. He operated profitably from day one, paying cash and going five years without a line of credit.

It grew fast. Wine by Joe was named the number one hot brand in the United States by Wine Business Monthly in 2011, and the company became Oregon’s second-largest producer. Dobbes was an early champion of the Eola-Amity Hills and the first Oregon winemaker to bottle Grenache Blanc.

After fifteen years he stepped back. 2016 was his last vintage as hands-on winemaker; in 2017 he sold half the company while retaining 50% ownership and semi-retired. Gretchen Boock, his first hire in 2002, became CEO. Joe went on to found Iterum Wines with his wife Patricia in the Eola-Amity Hills — small-batch, estate-grown, the opposite end of the scale from what he’d built here.

The winery has since been renamed Dobbes Family Winery. Derek Einberger came on as winemaker, making Burgundian-inspired Pinot Noir and Chardonnay from the Dundee Hills, Chehalem Mountains, Eola-Amity Hills, and McMinnville AVAs, plus Rogue Valley fruit. Great Northwest Wine named it Oregon Winery of the Year in 2023.

The Dundee tasting room describes itself as an urban winery — open daily with rotating flights of current releases and library wines, a large back patio, indoor and outdoor lounges, and heaters. Cheese and charcuterie are available. The house-made corn nuts get mentioned nearly as often as the wine.