Joe Campbell, founder of Elk Cove Vineyards in Willamette Valley, passed away June 28th in Sherwood, Oregon. He was 87 years old.

Campbell and his wife Pat founded Elk Cove Vineyards in 1974. It was the first winery in what is today the Yamhill-Carlton appellation, a nested growing region within the larger Willamette Valley. At the time, there were fewer than 10 wineries in Oregon. Today there are over 1,000 according to the Oregon Wine Board.

Campbell also worked as a physician throughout his career. His work on medical missions was among the things for which he was most proud.

“Joe was an important part of seeing the human element of people in wine and the healthcare that he represented,” said David Adelsheim, founder of Adelsheim Vineyard. “It really speaks to his knowledge, his ability to focus, but also his generalized view that wine was important, but it wasn’t the only important thing.”

Joseph Herald Campbell was born June 25, 1939 in Altadena, California. He was the child of Frederick Clarence Campbell and Lois E. Campbell (née Cordner). Campbell grew up in Hood River, Oregon, where his parents owned a small motel. He had 11 paid jobs before he graduated from Hood River Valley High School.

“I learned the value of hard work,” Campbell said in an interview for Adelsheim’s Founders Series earlier this decade.

After high school, Campbell received a full scholarship to Harvard University in Cambridge, Massachusetts. He graduated with a history of science degree. Campbell subsequently received a medical doctorate from Stanford University School of Medicine in Stanford, California.

Campbell and Patricia ‘Pat’ Alice Campbell (née Merz) first met as children when they were working picking strawberries. They started dating in San Francisco in the mid-1960s. Both had previously been married, with Joe having two sons.

Joe and Pat Campbell, Elk Cove Vineyards

The Campbells became interested in wine in the late 1960s while living in the Bay Area and visiting local tasting rooms. An orthopedic surgeon who Campbell had studied under invited the couple to his home and served high quality white Burgundies in a blind tasting. The Campbells subsequently enjoyed a bottle of red Burgundy at a restaurant in San Francisco. A seed was planted.

As a conscientious objector to the Vietnam War, Campbell was drafted to serve in the Indian Health Service. He served two years as an emergency physician in Pine Ridge, South Dakota. During that time, he and Pat made homemade wine from chokecherries and berries grown along a nearby creek.

The Campbells returned to Hood River in 1973. They had been looking for land to establish a farm. They saw an advertisement in the local paper listing the Gaston, Oregon property that would become their winery’s estate vineyard. The Campbells negotiated to buy the property the same day they saw it.

“We really at that time had no idea what we were going to do with it,” Campbell told the Oregon Wine History Archive in 2015.

Pat had grown up on a farm. Her father suggested they plant wine grape vines on their new property. The family moved to the land in October 1973 with their two young children, ages 3 and 5. For the next year, they lived out of an 8×35 foot trailer.

In the spring of 1974, the Campbells planted Chardonnay and Pinot Noir using cuttings from Coury Vineyard. They were assisted that summer by Campbell’s two older children from his first marriage. The vineyard was notable for its row spacing – six-foot by seven-foot – tighter than most west coast grape growers were using at the time.

The Campbells were pioneers in every sense of the word. They cut trees on the property to make a pole house. They did their own framing, roofing, sheetrock work, plumbing, electrical work, and painting. They would stay in this primitive home for the next 10 years.

“It was a bit of a hippie existence,” Anna, one of the Campbell’s daughters, said of those early days. “There were often friends living in trailers on the property who were helping out in exchange for wine futures.”

All the while, Campbell worked as a physician in Portland’s Providence Hospital. He also commuted to Longview, Washington for work. Campbell would work 24-hour shifts, come home, and get on the tractor.

The initial intention with the vineyard was to sell fruit. Once their first vintage was approaching, the couple decided to start a winery as well.

Joe Campbell, Elk Cove Vineyards

Elk Cove got its name from a herd of elk that bedded down by the trailer that the family lived in while they established the vineyard. The couple converted a cattle shed on the property into a winery, again, doing the work themselves.

“He got a lot of satisfaction out of that work,” Anna Campbell said of her father. “He was a really physical, active guy.”

The Campbells traveled to Champagne, Burgundy, and Alsace to learn more about winemaking. In 1976, they worked harvest at Tualatin Vineyards (now defunct). Elk Cove Vineyards had its first harvest and made its first wine in 1977.

“Like a lot of the early winemakers, we just jumped right in,” Campbell told the Oregon Wine History Archive.

In 1979, Elk Cove made three vineyard-designated wines, one from Dundee Hills Vineyard, one from Windhill Vineyard, and one from Elk Cove. Each came from a different soil type. Today, such vinous comparisons are commonplace in the west coast wine industry.

In the early days at the winery, Joe and Pat shared all responsibilities growing grapes and making wine. “We never had a vineyard manager, a winemaker other than us,” Campbell said in the Adelsheim Founders Series interview.

Early bottles listed both Joe and Pat as winemakers. This was at a time when there were few women winemakers in the west coast wine industry, let alone in Oregon.

Joe Campbell with his daughter, Dani

“My dad, he always approached the business as a partnership, and he and my mom were equal partners,” Anna Campbell said.

Their son Adam was named winemaker in 1995, making Elk Cove one of the earliest multi-generational wineries in the Northwest. Anna Campbell serves as co-owner and creative director.

Campbell retired from Elk Cove Vineyards in 1999. Over the next two decades, he served in medical missions in an assortment of countries, including Guatemala, Sri Lanka, South Sudan, and Peru. Campbell served on the boards of Bodyvox Dance Company, Faces Foundation, and Friends of the Columbia Gorge. His hobbies included basketball, hiking, photography, gardening, and skiing.

Joe Campbell is survived by his wife Pat; his two sons Fredrik and Klas from his former spouse, Pia Asp; his three children with Pat: Dani (Eartha), Adam, and Anna; and 14 grandchildren. He was preceded in death by his parents and brothers Daniel and John. A celebration of life will be held at Elk Cove Vineyards on August 30th.

All images courtesy of Elk Cove Vineyards.

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