There’s this story Neelam Dhaliwal likes to tell, about the time a friend of hers from university came to visit her in Oliver. As they travelled south on Highway 97, the friend, spotting the Dhaliwal name on orchards, farms, fruit stands and myriad other businesses, turned to Neelam and, only half joking, asked: “Are you the princess of Oliver?”

Neelam laughs. “In our culture, Dhaliwal is like Smith. We’re not all related,” she says. Then again, she and her sister Manpreet kind of are royalty down here in the South Okanagan, the second generation of a successful wine-making immigrant family, breaking barriers as rising stars in Canada’s wine world.

Neelam, 32, is the more outgoing of the two and a compelling storyteller who has stepped confidently into the role of operations manager at their family’s Kismet Estate Winery; Manpreet is more reserved, letting her award-winning work as head winemaker speak eloquently for her. Indeed, she is Canada’s first and only South Asian female head winemaker and, at just 28, one of the youngest, too.

“For the first time ever, we are 100 per cent women-run,” Neelam says. “People always talk about the two brothers who put together the estate, but no one recognizes the women working quietly in the background.”

The sisters are changing that.

Their story is one of second-generation immigrants who, instead of fleeing from the family farm like so many young people do, are building an exciting future right where they live, inspired by the simple idea their parents followed to Canada: “You don’t have to know where you’re going to end up, you just have to believe that something better is out there for you.”

Dishes from Manzil Restaurant pair beautifully with the winery’s award-winning wines, including a bottle of Kismet’s Phulkari Rosé, held by Manpreet Dhaliwal, head winemaker, shown bottom left. Neelam Dhaliwal, top right, operations manager, oversees Kismet’s day-today operations and hospitality, ensuring every guest experiences the winery’s warm welcome and award-winning wines.

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From Punjab to Oliver
In the 1980s, the northern Indian state of Punjab was in turmoil. The Khalistan movement calling for an independent Sikh homeland had erupted into a series of protests, armed attacks, assassinations and, in reprisal, a violent crackdown by the Indian military. Thousands of people died, so many that it has been called both called a holocaust and genocide.

At the same time, the largely agricultural region was suffering from the legacy of the Green Revolution, the 1960s and ’70s initiative that converted millennia of traditional farming practices into a modern industrial system complete with high- yielding variety seeds, tractors, irrigation facilities and lavish use of pesticides and fertilizers. Although the Green Revolution has been credited with transforming India from “a begging bowl to a breadbasket,” by the 1980s, Punjab was experiencing declining crop yields, environmental degradation, soaring costs and paralyzing debt. Many desperate farmers were driven to suicide.

It was a difficult time to be a young man in the region. Not surprisingly, many of them left, hightailing it to countries such as Canada, which welcomed their farming know-how.

Among them was Sukhwinder (Sukhi) Dhaliwal, who was 20 years old when, in 1989, he moved to the Okanagan Valley, where he had family. Four years later, his brother Balwinder (Bill), then 19, joined him as well. They soon found work on the local vineyards just as the B.C. wine industry was taking off.

In 1996, the Dhaliwal brothers bought their first property and planted grapes the following year. Now they are the region’s third-largest privately owned wine grape growers after Andrew Peller and Mark Anthony. They operate about 600 acres of vineyards and sell grapes to or manage vineyards for some of the best-known, most award-winning, wineries in the valley.

It was only a matter of time before they became intrigued by the idea of opening their own winery.

Around 2012, then-Lieutenant-Governor Judith Guichon came to the valley to meet with the winners of the annual British  Columbia Lieutenant Governor’s Wine Awards. At each photo op, the winemaking team was joined by the growers, and at winery after winery, those growers were the Dhaliwal brothers.

As Neelam recalls, “Guichon said to them: ‘You guys are in all the pictures — why don’t you have a winery?’ That [was] the beginning. That’s when the rumbling started.”

In 2013, they opened Kismet Family Estate as a “hobby,” naming it for its meaning — destiny or fate — with the intention of using only the finest grapes they grew for wines they wanted to make.

“Kismet is a word we use in our family all the time,” Neelam says. Still, she admits, “When we opened the winery, we had a bit of impostor syndrome.”

But then the 2013 vintage Cabernet Sauvignon went on to win a lieutenant-governor’s award of its own in 2015. Since then, Kismet has raked in dozens of awards, and, under Neelam and Manpreet’s leadership, it continues to evolve. It boasts a popular and recently renovated tasting room and is home to the new Manzil Restaurant, where chef Chandrakant Pote makes beautifully balanced Indian dishes with B.C. ingredients. (They also pair seamlessly with Kismet wines.) And they are not done — the family has also started building a guesthouse they hope to open next year.

Everything they do evokes their family and their culture. The tasting room, for instance, features products designed by Indo-Canadian artisans throughout the valley, its windows and ornamentation evocative of Jaipur and the Taj Mahal. As Neelam says, “We wanted people to walk through and feel like they’ve been transported somewhere else.”

A family business
Sukhi Dhaliwal only discovered wine when he moved to Canada, but his daughters grew up with it. And although Neelam and Manpreet both got university degrees and tried other careers first — Neelam in business, Manpreet in nursing — they were inevitably drawn back home to wine country and the family business. Their little brother, Dilshaan, who is currently studying for his business degree at UBC Sauder, also helps out in the tasting room and restaurant in the summers. Their aunt Sandeep spent 10 years working in the tasting room; now she and Balwinder’s kids also work there. Their eldest son, Gagan, works full-time in the vineyards, and their middle daughter, Navrit, works in the tasting room when she’s not at university studying political science.

And they’re not the only ones among the valley’s Indo-Canadian families.

“My generation is still heavily involved in our families’ businesses,” Neelam says. “We’re the first generation that was born here. We protect our parents. Our generation took over the family’s farming.”

Up and down the valley, the Punjabi kids all grew up working on the family farms, orchards and vineyards. As Neelam says, “To know to show up and put the work in, that’s how you learn to have the work ethic.” Even when they moved away, they kept on top of what was going on back home, always with an eye to coming home. To them, it’s not just a business. It’s family.

Left: Founders, Owners & Viticulture – Sukhi and Balwinder Dhaliwal

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Similar stories dot the region
Take Ricky Dhaliwal (no relation), who, with his wife, Danielle Jentsch, recently opened Lakeside Cellars in Osoyoos. For the high school sweethearts who came from local fruit-growing (him) and wine-making (her) families, opening their own winery was a lifelong dream. Rajen Singh, winemaker and founder of the critically beloved Ursa Major Wines, also grew up on his family’s South Okanagan vineyards.

Further north in West Kelowna, Mehtab Gidda bought a farm in 1963; his sons became grape growers and, in 2000, became the first Indo-Canadians to own a winery in B.C. — Mount Boucherie Estate. Now his grandchildren Bobby, Christina and Amit run Volcanic Hills Estate Winery on the farm their grandpa bought 60 years ago.

And just this year, Sukhi and Balwinder’s cousins Sukhvir, Gurjit and Harjit Dhaliwal, accomplished grape growers themselves, bought Moon Curser Vineyards in Osoyoos when its founders, Chris and Beata Tolley, retired.

“We all came from the same place and we all ended up in the same place,” Neelam says. “That’s why we’re here, because it’s farming.”

They also work together, sharing equipment and help when needed, lending a hand during a busy harvest season or when disaster befalls, like the devastating winter freezes of 2023 and 2024, and celebrating together when there’s good news. “The last two years with the cold snaps, nobody was happy. This year with all the good fruit, there’s lots more smiles,” says Moon Curser’s Sukhvir.

Manpreet’s moment
For Neelam and Manpreet, wine is not just a job, but a calling. And the moment they realized that was marked by a single wine that changed them forever.

For Neelam, it was the 2020 Cabernet Franc Reserve, a wine of unusual breadth and power. She was at a barrel tasting, the only woman in a room full of seasoned pros selecting juice for the blends Kismet is best known for. The moment she tasted the Cab Franc from one particular barrel, she knew right away it was something special even though the others had overlooked it. She was right: It became the first single-variety Cab Franc they bottled and went on to win a gold medal.

“Cabernet Franc was my validation,” she says.

For Manpreet, it was the 2023 Pinot Grigio. “When my sister joined the winery team, she was new and a little nervous,” Neelam says. “This was the first wine she produced 100 per cent on her own, and it won double gold. People drink it like water, especially on a hot patio.”

In fact, of the first four wines Manpreet made, three have won medals at the All Canadian Wine Awards. The 2023 Kamal, a robust rosé whose name means “lotus,” won silver, while the 2024 Phulkari, a lush, juicy rosé made from 67 per cent Cabernet Sauvignon and equal parts Syrah and Cabernet Franc, was recently named another double gold finalist.

It was also, Manpreet says, “a make lemons out of lemonade situation.” She explains that, in a normal year, they would bring in 150 to 250 tonnes of fruit; because of the two winter events, in 2023, they only harvested 90 tonnes of fruit and in 2024, just four tonnes. Luckily, it was just enough that they haven’t had to resort to using “replacement grapes” from Washington or elsewhere as so many of their neighbours have done.

“One part of our brand we’ve always focused on is our authenticity and transparency,” Neelam says. “We have always been quality over quantity. And if that means we only make 200 cases, well… It’s so important to represent. We’re only ever going to be ourselves.”

Still, Manpreet says, “With all that, we couldn’t make our usual lineup, so [the Phulkari] was something made by default with whatever we had on hand.”

“Phulkari” translates to “floral patchwork.” It’s also the name of a very special handwoven scarf worn by Punjabi women. As Neelam says, “It’s a love letter to womanhood and the women who never get the recognition or the acknowledgment.”

Among those women are their mother, Bhupinder, and aunt Sandeep, who quietly work behind the scenes, taking care of the home and the family while the rest of the family keeps the business going. Manpreet calls her mother “the backbone of our family.” And, as Neelam says, “At Kismet, everything is always about family.”

Just take a look at Kismet’s labels; they are all about the family and the journey they’ve taken to get to where they are. For instance, Moksha, their “dark chocolate in a glass” red blend of mainly Rhône varieties, means liberation or freedom of the soul. “It’s the place where we came from and the place where we are now,” Neelam says. “We’ve experienced moksha. We’ve experienced liberation.” Mantra, their big, bold, opulent Bordeaux-style blend: “It’s what we do. It isn’t just kismet, it’s our personal motto, our mantra. It’s one of those go big or go home situations.”

Family. Tradition. Farming. A new land, new opportunities. It’s all come together for the Dhaliwal family, and now Neelam and Manpreet are looking forward to an exciting new future for them all.

“Who’d have thought we’d be in Oliver, we’d be growing grapes, and now we’re making wine,” Neelam says. “It’s our kismet. It’s our destiny.”

Kismet Estate Winery
316 Rd. 20, Oliver
kismetestatewinery.com | 250.495.4462 | @kismetwines