With an entrepreneurial spirit he has come by honestly, Ed works to ensure that family-owned and farmed King Estate Winery will endure for generations to come.
Ed King III founded King Estate in 1991 with his father, Ed King, Jr. (1921-2012), but the winery’s story has its roots in the Kansas City, Missouri, area, where Ed was born and raised and where his father’s mobile communications company, King Radio, was based. After earning a law degree from the University of Missouri in 1975, Ed practiced law in Alaska and then worked for King Radio. Eventually Ed made his way west to Eugene and the University of Oregon where he earned an MBA in 1982 and went on to establish a groundbreaking cardiac care center at the region’s largest hospital. He later founded Oak Hill School, a non-religious college preparatory school in Eugene that has operated for almost 25 years. A search for organic hay for his horses led Ed to discover a spectacular piece of land on the outskirts of Eugene. The 600-acre property was a ranch, but Ed saw a vineyard. With his father, who by then had sold King Radio, Ed purchased the land in 1990 and established King Estate Winery in 1991. Over the years Ed’s wife, Jodee, and three sons joined the business, adding neighboring parcels to bring the total acreage to 1,033, opening a restaurant in 2006, and becoming one of Oregon’s largest and most successful wineries, distributed across the country and internationally. The North by Northwest and Acrobat labels were introduced in 2005 and 2009 respectively. Acrobat, the fastest-growing brand Oregon has ever seen, was sold to Foley Family Wines in 2018 to allow the family to focus on its core brand, King Estate. True to its commitment to sustainability, King Estate was certified Biodynamic® in 2016, farming the way people have for 10,000 years and making timeless wines to enhance our time here on Earth.
