Earlier today Dayton, Oregon-based Stoller Wine Group announced the acquisition of the Elouan brand from California’s Copper Cane Wines & Provisions. Terms of the acquisition were not disclosed.

The move nearly doubles Stoller’s production from 170,000 to 300,000 cases annually. The vast majority of that increase comes from Elouan’s Oregon-designated Pinot Noir that retails for $25. Elouan also makes Oregon-designated Chardonnay, Rosé, and a reserve Pinot Noir.

The acquisition continues Stoller Wine Group’s rapid growth over the past 15 years. The company’s collection of brands now includes Stoller Family Estate, Elouan, Chehalem Winery, Chemistry, Stoller Swing, History, and Canned Oregon.

The acquisition also comes at a time of transition both for the wine industry and for Stoller. Many large wineries are currently contracting, adding intrigue to Stoller’s decision to expand. Stoller Wine Group founder Bill Stoller died in April, making this the company’s first major move since his passing.

Stoller acquiring Elouan is all the more fascinating as Copper Cane founder Joseph Wagner locked horns with the Oregon wine industry over referencing specific appellations in Oregon, despite the wines being produced in California. This ultimately led to Copper Cane paying a $50,000 fine. Copper Cane also ruffled feathers when the company cancelled grape contracts in Oregon in 2018. Now Elouan will be an Oregon-based brand for one of the state’s most highly regarded producers.

Here, I talk with Stoller Wine Group president Gary Mortensen about why the company acquired Elouan, where the wines will fit in the company’s portfolio, and what comes next for Stoller Wine Group. The interview has been lightly edited for clarity and length.

What made the acquisition of Elouan appealing to Stoller Wine Group?

The market is contracting. We felt like it was a good time, maybe somewhat counterintuitively, for us to be thinking about expanding. We agree with Warren Buffett that this is the time when you look to go on offense. I think that natural instinct is to start to shrink.

Over the last 10+ years, we have been in expansion mode, investing in vineyard acquisitions and, of course, we acquired Chehalem Winery. (Editor’s Choice: The company recently opened a Chehalem tasting room in the Laurelwood District.) We’ve built the infrastructure across this enterprise now where we went from Stoller Family Estate, 9,000 cases in 2011 to something much larger and across multiple vineyards and wineries and tasting rooms and wine bars.

Coming from tech and startups, the idea of ‘buy versus build’ always makes a lot of sense to me. So we started seeing what was out there. When Elouan came up, it was very attractive to us because we were really just purchasing the brand. We’re able to operate the Elouan brand without adding a lot of additional expense on top of that, so that makes us a very efficient company.

For us, it was looking at the fact that they are the number three selling Oregon Pinot Noir in the nation, and what’s so exciting for us is that they did that really quickly. Then it’s thinking about how we could leverage

Image courtesy of Stoller Wine Group. 

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