Manuel Zuppiger (Manny) is the winemaker at Arrowleaf Cellars, a family-owned winery in Lake Country, BC. Manny trained as a winemaker in Wädenswil, Switzerland, before gaining further experience in the Barossa Valley, Australia. He then returned to the Okanagan, where he honed his skills at Hillside Estate Winery under Eric von Krosigk and at Tinhorn Creek under Sandra Oldfield. Upon returning home, Manny worked alongside his parents, Joe and Margrit Zuppiger, to build and establish Arrowleaf Cellars. The winery opened to the public in 2003, with Manny overseeing winemaking—a role he continues today, along with vineyard management.
Arrowleaf Cellars is equipped to produce up to 20,000 cases of wine and is still operated by family members Margrit, Manny, and his siblings Karin, Jude, and Janine.
Manny enjoys outdoor activities like trail running, mountain biking, cross-country skiing, and snowboarding in his spare time. Recently, his two young children have kept him busy, and instead of traveling to wine regions or attending mountain bike races, the whole family now looks forward to road trips and camping vacations. Media Inquiries: manuel@arrowleafcellars.com | https://www.arrowleafcellars.com/home
What’s the ONE THING most unique, authentic, & memorable about your brand?
At Arrowleaf, we’re a family-run winery started by my parents, Joe and Margrit Zuppiger. Our family is from Switzerland, where I received my winemaking training. There, I was exposed to a world of wine we don’t often see or hear about in North America. I learned to make wine with a focus on quality and clean flavor profiles, but I also learned about ancient grape varieties and regions that are off the beaten path. Anyone who travels through the wine regions of Vaud, Valais, or Graubünden will be struck by how scenic and special they are. Now our family is here at the northern tip of the Okanagan Valley, and it is also beautiful and new ground to discover. We produce varietal wines like Pinot Noir and Riesling, but we also make wines from Bacchus, Petite Arvine, and Zweigelt grapes. We enjoy experimenting with new and different winemaking techniques. I believe that unique grapes and innovative winemaking offer a wealth of exciting flavors and textures. Our portfolio includes skin-fermented wines and piquettes. As a winery, we strive to make wines that are approachable, affordable, and a little different.
Describe how and what you’d do with your winemaking career or winery business if you were not constrained.
I would like to plant more of the Swiss grape varieties in our vineyards to see how they would do. Grapes like Amigne, Humane Rouge, Cornalin, Heida, or Räuschling could be interesting and fun to work with. If money and time truly were no constraints, I would love to try my pie-in-the-sky idea of growing a plot of vines that are all new and genetically unique. It would be a field blend wine of unknown grapes. It would truly be a wine of terroir. I had this idea when I noticed random grapevines starting to grow around the winery or near our compost pile. They had sprouted from seeds that were left behind after processing the grapes. It gave me the idea of deliberately sowing thousands of seeds to see what sprouts. Any vines that grow I would nurture and propagate if fruitful. Once I have enough new potential grapevines available to me, I would plant them out in a vineyard block, not in monoculture, but in polyculture. If this experiment were to bear fruit, I would harvest all the grapes together to create an unknown field blend that is truly a reflection of place.
What is the One Wine most emblematic of your brand and/or winemaking style? Tell us its story.
Petite Arvine is a wine we make in tiny quantities but it’s the one wine that best reflects what we strive for. It’s an ancient grape from the Valais in Switzerland and the Aosta Valley in Italy. It’s a grape with great potential for long-lived, characterful wines. We didn’t know how it would grow in Lake Country at the northern edge of the Okanagan Valley. So far, even though it ripens late, it has proven to be very promising. It has survived extreme weather and created lovely wines. Its alpine pedigree seems to be ideally suited to this place. Read the Petite Arvine wine review here.
Why Winemaking?
Having grown up on a farm and surrounded by agriculture, winemaking offered me a career rooted in that foundation, but it is so much more—providing opportunities for growth, creativity, and a new project to work on every vintage. Unlike most winemakers, I started with winemaking before I was a wine drinker. The introvert in me immediately fell in love with the cellar work. The barrels, the smell of fermentation, and even the lab work got me hooked right away. I was young and I soaked it up like a sponge. I started to learn about the world of wine and tasted great wines from different places, which further deepened my appreciation. I’ve had a hand in nearly 30 vintages and I’m now slowly circling back to the vineyard. I’m overseeing the grape-growing and winemaking at Arrowleaf, which has given me a greater appreciation for the land, climate, and soil we work with every day. It’s Mother Nature that sets out the ground rules, we must adapt and make the most of it as best we can.