Growing up in a European immigrant household, with a Viennese father and a mother who had come from Africa, Anthony von Mandl remembers wine as something reserved for special occasions. “It was something really to celebrate,” von Mandl tells BCBusiness.
In his early 20s, while studying economics at UBC, von Mandl returned to Europe and met a family that had been making wine for many centuries. Fascinated, he went back after graduating for a short apprenticeship, learning about vineyards and winemaking. He returned to Vancouver at 22, setting up shop in a roughly 100-square-foot office—“not much bigger than a closet,” he recalls—next to the Queen Elizabeth Theatre and launching Mark Anthony Wine Merchants. “No one had ever called themselves a wine merchant,” von Mandl says of his early days. He has self-financed the business ever since, without outside capital.
It’s hard to imagine the billionaire’s humble origins when you look at his present list of accolades. Von Mandl is the founder and chair of the Mark Anthony Group of Companies, the privately held beverage empire behind Mike’s Hard Lemonade and White Claw—the 100-calorie drink that helped turn hard seltzer into a cultural phenomenon.
But those ventures were, in part, born out of the need to finance his original ambition: wine. After acquiring a struggling Okanagan winery in 1981, von Mandl bet on the then largely unknown local growing region over Napa Valley or Washington State, pouring proceeds from his ready-to-drink businesses into Mission Hill and its vineyards.
Thirteen years later, Mission Hill’s 1992 Grand Reserve Chardonnay was named Best Chardonnay in the World in London. “That was the first time I knew my dream had legs,” he says. Until then, convincing others that the Okanagan could compete globally had felt like a “larger-than-Mount Everest kind of obstacle.” The winery later won World’s Best Pinot Noir at the Decanter World Wine Awards, while Mission Hill’s 2020 Oculus became the first Canadian red wine to receive a perfect 100-point score.
By then, the honours were piling up. Von Mandl was appointed to the Order of British Columbia in 2005 and named an Officer of the Order of Canada in 2016. In 2022, France named him a knight of the country’s Légion d’honneur, and in June 2026, he received the Austrian Decoration of Honour in Vienna. The entrepreneur has also been inducted into Canada’s Marketing Hall of Legends, the B.C. Business Hall of Fame and the Canadian Agricultural Hall of Fame.
For von Mandl, there’s little time to rest on laurels—or bottles. “I think the opportunities are only beginning,” he says. Mark Anthony is continuing to invest in flavour development and R&D from its Vancouver labs, while using AI to inform vineyard planting techniques and layouts. With consumers increasingly shifting toward ready-to-drink beverages, von Mandl sees plenty of runway ahead—and, after five decades of betting early on what comes next, he’s still looking for the next category, technology or idea that could change the game.
Who is your dream dinner-table guest?
“My father, who passed away before he was able to see most of what I’ve achieved in my career and my personal life.”
What’s your go-to wine order?
A CheckMate chardonnay, a CedarCreek rosé or a Martin’s Lane pinot noir.
What’s your favourite local business (besides your own)?
Aritzia, Lululemon, Electronic Arts and Purdy’s.
Check out the full list of Entrepreneur of the Year 2026 winners and finalists here.
