Stoller Wine Group Buys Joe Wagner’s Oregon Brand Elouan

On June 12, California-based winemaker Joe Wagner—most famous for starting the Meiomi brand and then selling it for $315 million—sold his popular Oregon wine brand Elouan to the Stoller Wine Group for an undisclosed sum. The deal includes the brand, current inventory and bulk wine but no vineyards or winemaking facilities.

Wagner started Elouan in 2013 as part of his Napa-based company Copper Cane Wines & Provisions, which also includes Belle Glos and Böen (which both bottle Pinot Noir and Chardonnay from different Californian appellations) and Quilt (Napa Valley Sauvignon Blanc, Cabernet Sauvignon and red blends). Elouan relied heavily on purchased fruit from Southern Oregon to produce mass-marketed, fruit-forward Pinot Noir and Chardonnay under an Oregon designation. The brand has been making about 130,000 cases annually at facilities in California, not Oregon.

“Elouan is the No. 3 selling Pinot Noir from Oregon across the country, and we are excited about how it will enhance our overall portfolio,” said Gary Mortensen, president of Stoller Wine Group, adding that the acquisition substantially expands Stoller’s distribution footprint across the country at retail stores and restaurants. “Our brand is very strong locally, and we believe that we can leverage our overall portfolio via the robust market share Elouan enjoys nationally.”

The deal has been in the works for about four months, Mortensen said. Elouan joins Chehalem, Chemistry, History and Stoller as part of Stoller Wine Group, which was founded in 1993 by Oregon native Bill Stoller, who passed away in April. The purchase of Elouan brings the company’s annual production to about 300,000 cases, just shy of A to Z Wineworks and King Estate.

[article-img-container][src=2025-06/ns-stoller-buys-elouan-061325_1600.jpg] [credit= (Andréa Johnson/Courtesy of Stoller Family Estate)] [alt= Stoller winery in Oregon with vineyards in the background][end: article-img-container]

The Elouan brand has continued to grow amid troubling times in the wine industry, Wagner said. “The $20 to $50 price points at retail and then our pricing structures for on-premise seem to be all the sweet spots. So, our portfolio has been doing very well in weathering this storm.”

However, Wagner said, the Copper Cane team began thinking about selling Elouan as far as back 2017. The logistics of buying fruit in Oregon and transporting it to California to make the wine were becoming increasingly complicated. “That’s when we thought, ‘Maybe this brand belongs in Oregon?’ And then the next question is, ‘Do we want to make this wine in Oregon? Do we want to manage a facility in Oregon?’ And the answer to those questions was a resounding ‘no.’”

When Elouan was first launched, Wagner faced scrutiny over labeling that many critics thought blurred the line between Oregon and California wine. Mortensen noted that, starting with the 2025 harvest, Elouan will be “a 100 percent Oregon-produced wine.”

The price paid for Elouan is likely nowhere near what Constellation Brands paid in 2015 when it bought Wagner’s best-selling California label, Meiomi, also known for its easy-drinking, fan-friendly Pinots and Chardonnays. (Like the Stoller-Elouan deal, that transaction also did not include any vineyards) The Wine Group bought Meiomi from Constellation earlier this spring.