Elk Cove Vineyards

In 1974, the Campbell family drove up a gravel road to an abandoned, overgrown homestead in the Coast Range foothills. Their six-year-old daughter asked where the house was. Joe and Pat pointed at the trailer behind them — home for the next year.

They’d been living near Hood River and had traveled widely, falling for the food and wine cultures of France and Italy. They chose this property for its shallow soils, steep terrain, and views, and bought what was then an abandoned prune orchard. There were fewer than ten wineries in Oregon at the time. Elk Cove became the first in what is now the Yamhill-Carlton AVA.

They planted Chardonnay and Pinot Noir that spring using cuttings from Coury Vineyard, helped by Joe’s two older children. The plan was to sell fruit; as the first harvest approached, they decided to make wine instead. They converted the homesteader’s barn into a winery themselves and built a house from reclaimed lumber, enticing friends to help on weekends with manual labor and wine futures. Joe worked nights in the ER, Pat managed the business and the vineyards, and they made the wine together. First harvest came in 1977.

The name came from a herd of Roosevelt elk that bedded down beside the trailer while they worked.

Their circle became the founding generation of Oregon wine — David Lett, Dick Ponzi, Dick Erath, David Adelsheim. Adam Campbell grew up in it, went to Yamhill-Carlton High School alongside Jason Lett and Alex Sokol Blosser, and remembers realizing around fourth grade that his parents were considered eccentric. He joined full time in 1995 and took over winemaking when Joe retired in 1999.

Adam now oversees six vineyard sites and roughly 380 planted acres across the northern Willamette Valley, spanning Jory, Laurelwood, and WillaKenzie soils at elevations to 800 feet. That’s more than ten times the total vineyard acreage in Oregon when his parents planted their first vine. The winery is a registered Oregon Benefit Company, a B Corp and a member of 1% For The Planet.

The range covers single-vineyard Pinot Noirs including La Bohème and Mount Richmond, plus Pinot Gris, Pinot Blanc, Riesling, Chardonnay, Brut Rosé, and a dessert wine called Ultima.

Joe Campbell died in June 2026 at 87. He spent his later years on humanitarian medical work.