Olive Hamilton Russell

Her extensive experience in the world of fine wine spans over twenty years, including active leadership roles at three internationally recognized South African wineries. She was also the founding member of Hamilton Russell Oregon.

Raised on a cattle ranch near the Swaziland border in South Africa – a property that had been in her family for nearly 200 years – Olive’s connection to the land runs deep. When she and her sister had to make the heartbreaking decision to sell their farm, Olive chose to honor her heritage by investing her share of the proceeds in a personal wine venture.

At the time, she was deeply involved in her then-husband’s family wineries, with the US market as one of her responsibilities. Her love for Pinot Noir and Chardonnay and the US inspired her quest to express these varietals through terroirs different from then her home soil. After initially exploring California’s famed Pinot Noir regions, Olive attended her first International Pinot Noir Celebration (IPNC) in Oregon in 2015. That weekend, she fell in love with the combination of opulent fruit purity and restrained elegance she had never encountered in any new world Pinot Noir producing region. She committed herself to finding a way to make wine in the Willamette Valley.

Equipped with the knowledge gained during almost two decades of a deep involvement in the production and marketing of internationally respected South African Pinot Noir and Chardonnay, the inaugural vintage of Hamilton Russell Oregon Pinot Noir was vinified in 2018.

The maiden vintage of OLIVE HAMILTON RUSSELL, the 2023, is the first vintage with Olive as sole winemaker. She now lives in the Willamette Valley and is responsible for every aspect of the business – vineyard partnerships to winemaking, management to marketing. She has secured long-term relationships with LIVE Certified growers across the Valley and makes her wines at the Northwest Wine Company in Dundee. Olive holds the WSET Diploma and continues her winemaking studies through short courses at UC Davis. She is grateful to learn and benefit from the guidance of the expert team at the winery.