Winemaker
Anthony von Mandl
- Discipline
- Winemaker
- Based in
- West Kelowna, Canada
i. Biography
Anthony von Mandl is a Canadian from Vancouver, Canada, and the proprietor of Mission Hill Family Estate in West Kelowna, Canada. The work here sits at the meeting point of wine, trade, and ownership: a career built from the commercial side of the category into a position of long-term control over a named estate. His own shorthand for that starting point is direct: "I was driven by wine, food, and adventure." It reads less like branding than a working brief for a life organized around product, place, and scale.
The Climb
At University of British Columbia, Anthony von Mandl built the academic base that preceded a first job in the trade as importer and wine seller at Canadian wine business in Vancouver, Canada. The sequence matters. It shows a path that moved from study to the sales side of wine, with early exposure to how the category is bought, moved, and understood in market. From there, the career accumulated through experience rather than sudden leap: trade first, ownership later. In 1981, the founding of Mission Hill Family Estate gave that experience a permanent address. Anthony von Mandl's name becomes attached to the winery at that point, not as a branding exercise but as the start of a long operating relationship with a single place. Founding in this context means more than opening a door; it means carrying the work forward as the estate takes shape over time. Today, Anthony is founder and proprietor of Mission Hill Family Estate and founder of Mike's Hard Lemonade Co, a dual portfolio that spans wine and beverage. The roles show breadth, but they also share the same underlying logic: build a business, keep a hand in it, and stay close to the category as it develops.
Today
The founder title at Mission Hill Family Estate remains active, and the proprietor role in West Kelowna keeps the connection to the estate current. That continuity is the point. A founder can be historical; a proprietor is present-tense ownership, and Anthony von Mandl holds both. The estate therefore reads not as a line item in a portfolio, but as a working center of gravity. The long view is clear in the way the titles stack up: founder, proprietor, and the estate begun in 1981. That combination points to stewardship rather than detachment. Mission Hill Family Estate is the place where the career's structure is easiest to read, because the name, the role, and the site remain aligned.
Signature
Anthony's signature wines include Oculus, 2016 Oculus, Quatrain, Compendium, and 2022 Terroir Collection Cabernet Franc. The list marks the wines most closely associated with his work, and it does so in the precise language of named bottlings. Across the group, the identity is defined by labeled wines and vintages rather than by abstraction, which is the right register for a career anchored to an estate.
Profile updated July 2026
FAQ
Asked of Anthony
Where did Anthony von Mandl train or study?
Anthony von Mandl trained at University of British Columbia.
What recognition has Anthony von Mandl received?
Officer of the Order of Canada (2016).
