Elouan, a portfolio of wines made in California with Oregon grapes, has been acquired by Stoller Wine Group in Dayton, Oregon. A brand that was once a thorn in the side of the Oregon wine industry and state regulators is coming home.
The announcement that Stoller had purchased the Elouan brand from Copper Cane Wines & Provisions in Rutherford, California, was officially made June 12 in a news release. Copper Cane was founded in 2014 by Joseph “Joe” Wagner, a fifth-generation Napa Valley winemaker who said his goal for Elouan was to make “Oregon wines with a hint of California influence.”
Wagner said in a telephone interview that the idea to sell Elouan started two years ago, as they were about to add a new entry-level brand called Threadcount. Wagner said that Threadcount would tie in with Copper Cane’s more upscale Quilt & Co. brand.
“Elouan just didn’t have a tie-in like that, but it was still an important part of the business,” Wagner said.
Another primary reason triggering Elouan’s sale, according to Wagner, was the growing cost of trucking grapes from Oregon to California. Trucking and fuel costs were ever-increasing, and the dry ice used to pack the fruit was becoming harder to source and significantly more expensive, as well.
“Even our management from afar costs were increasing,” Wagner said, “so we decided to see if we could find a good fit for Elouan in Oregon.” Wagner said he was thrilled that Stoller purchased Elouan, calling them “a born and bred Oregon company.”
The sale adds Elouan to a Stoller wine portfolio that includes Stoller Family Estate, Chehalem Winery, Chemistry, Stoller Swing and History labels. By adding the Elouan wines to their portfolio, Hannah Guth, communications coordinator for the Stoller Wine Group, said Stoller’s total annual case production will grow from 170,000 to 300,000.
Most of that addition is due to Elouan’s pinot noir, which, according to Gary Mortensen, president of Stoller Wine Group, is “the No. 3 selling pinot noir from Oregon across the country.”
Mortensen added that Stoller hopes to leverage Elouan’s extensive distribution network to get Stoller’s wines into the hands of more consumers.
But is making a significant purchase like this a prudent move given the current precarious state of the American wine industry? “Acquiring an asset in a down market has its risks, but we’re bullish on Oregon,” Mortensen said.
In addition to gaining distribution with Elouan wines, Mortensen said that the purchase allowed the Stoller Wine Group to scale up production without having to alter the nature of the other brands in the portfolio.”We now get to increase output, and Stoller gets to be Stoller, and Chehalem gets to be Chehalem,” Mortensen said.
Mortensen added that acquiring Elouan dovetails with the Stoller Wine Group’s “relatively quiet” acquisition of Coles Valley Vineyard in the Umpqua Valley in 2023. The vineyard is near many of Copper Cane’s Oregon fruit sources, leading Mortensen to state that purchasing Elouan “almost magically sort of overlaps in that we could use this 300-acre vineyard to power, internally, our Elouan production.”
Elouan first hit the Oregon wine industry’s radar in 2017 with wine labels and marketing materials that mentioned specific Oregon American Viticultural Areas, or AVAs, such as the Willamette Valley. In 2018, the Oregon Liquor and Cannabis Commission (OLCC) argued that Elouan’s listing of specific Oregon AVAs violated state and federal labeling laws.
Rep. David Gomberg, Oregon House District 10, with an early Elouan case box improperly displaying three AVAs simultaneously.Michael Alberty/For The Oregonian
A Fred Meyer display featuring Elouan wines and Copper Cane owner Joe Wagner.Michael Alberty/For The Oregonian
Those laws state that when grapes are taken across the Oregon state line to make wine in another state, a company such as Copper Cane is required to use a generic “Oregon” on its label to describe its appellation of origin.
The OLCC argued that these violations justified revoking Copper Cane’s wine licenses. Instead of appealing the decision, in 2021, Wagner decided to settle by paying a $50,000 fine without admitting guilt.
“We certainly had some dramatic moments with a few producers and the OLCC,” Wagner said. “Maybe we should have thought about selling back then. But we persevered and made it work. Elouan on-premise sales are strong, and retail sales have been expanding. We left a lot of meat on the bone.”
Does Wagner think he will ever launch another Oregon project? “We have no plans for that. We learned a lot of lessons along the way. Now I think we’re better suited for doing what we do best in California,” Wagner said.
With Stoller’s acquisition, Mortensen said that beginning with the 2025 harvest, Elouan wines will be produced entirely in-state, hopefully making Elouan an “Oregon icon.
This article was updated to include comments from two of the principals in the sale.
-- Michael Alberty writes about wine for The Oregonian/OregonLive and Wine Enthusiast Magazine. He can be reached at malberty0@gmail.com.