The Comic Book, the Vienna & the Zero-Input Hand
Neon Eon Wine is a zero-input natural wine project born in the Okanagan Valley of British Columbia — a side project, a creative outlet, and a deliberate rebellion against the heavy manipulation that defines so much of modern winemaking. Founded by Tyler Thrussell around 2018/2019, Neon Eon is the offshoot of Sage Hills, the family winery in Summerland where Thrussell grew up among the vines. But where Sage Hills follows convention, Neon Eon breaks every rule: no added yeasts, no sulfur, no enzymes, no nutrients, no fining, no filtering, and no other inputs of any kind. The wines are made from organic or biodynamic grapes sourced from across the Okanagan, fermented spontaneously, and bottled with their sediment and their soul intact. The labels — originally created by Vancouver comic artist Will Dereume (@deep.gnome) in his signature Eggshell Comics style — are colourful, cartoonish, and defiantly unserious, a perfect visual match for a project that believes wine culture takes itself too seriously. The name says it all: Neon — bright, electric, full of life; Eon — ancient, timeless, rooted in techniques that have existed for millennia. This is winemaking as comic book, as punk rock, and as a refusal to drink dead wine.
The Family Winery, the Vienna Restaurant & the Thrussell Hand
The story of Neon Eon begins in a family vineyard in Summerland — Sage Hills, where Tyler Thrussell grew up surrounded by vines, tractors, and the rhythms of the Okanagan growing season. Wine was never a foreign concept; it was the family business. But the path from farm kid to natural winemaker was not direct. Thrussell's awakening happened thousands of miles away, in a restaurant in Vienna, Austria, around 2014. He was poured a Gewürztraminer that looked like "super oxidized apricot juice" — a hazy, amber liquid that bore no resemblance to the sterile wines he had known. "I had never seen anything like it and once I tried it I never looked back — it was like when Jeff Daniels' character in Pleasantville sees colour for the first time." At the time, Thrussell was working as a rep for an unnamed commodity wine producer, and the contrast between the Vienna glass and the industrial wineries he visited — which looked "more like a petro-chemical plant than a winery" — radicalised him.
Back in British Columbia, Thrussell began to see his family's vineyard with new eyes. Sage Hills was already farmed organically — small amounts of sulfur during the growing season to control mildew, organic manure every few years, and nothing else. The abundance of life in a healthy vineyard — the insects, the birds, the symbiosis of creatures going about their business — became a source of endless fascination. "I could spend all day watching the various animals going about their business," he said. But Neon Eon was not born from the family estate; it was born from restlessness. Thrussell wanted to experiment, to push boundaries, to make wines that Sage Hills could not — wines with zero inputs, wild ferments, and no safety net. Around 2018/2019, he launched the project as a creative outlet, a laboratory, and a personal statement.
The name came from a desire to capture both poles of the project's identity. Neon — because the wines are bright, electric, alive, and full of colour. Eon — because they are made with ancient techniques that have been around for millennia: wild fermentation, no additives, respect for the grape. "I can think of a number of interpretations," Thrussell says, "but the one I give out is that the wine is bright and full of life like 'Neon' and made using ancient techniques that have been around for 'Eons'." The labels were entrusted to Will Dereume, a Vancouver comic artist whose Eggshell Comics — with their bold lines, saturated colours, and playful absurdity — were the perfect visual language for a project that refused to take itself seriously. "Too many wine brands take themselves too seriously. In fact, wine culture in general takes itself a bit too seriously, though I think that is beginning to change, which is great." Thrussell gave Dereume the label dimensions and a rough sense of direction, then let him run. The result was a gallery of cartoonish, day-glo characters that looked more like indie comic book covers than conventional wine labels — and that was precisely the point.
"I had never seen anything like it and once I tried it I never looked back — it was like when Jeff Daniels' character in Pleasantville sees colour for the first time."
— Tyler Thrussell, on his first natural wine in Vienna
Okanagan Valley, Summerland & the Organic Hand
The Okanagan Valley is a 200-kilometre desert ribbon of lakes, sand, and vineyards carved by glacial retreat more than 9,000 years ago. It is Canada's most important wine region, yet it is also a place of extremes and contradictions: a sandy loam desert marketed as a Mediterranean paradise, where industrial wineries tower in glass and concrete while small farmers tend organic plots in the shadows. For Neon Eon, the Okanagan is not merely a backdrop but a source of tension and inspiration — the place where Thrussell learned that healthy grapes need no help, and that the best wines come from vineyards teeming with life rather than factories pumping out product.
The project's fruit is sourced from organic and biodynamic vineyards across the Okanagan — including the family estate at Sage Hills in Summerland and other carefully selected sites. The Sage Hills vineyard is the philosophical anchor: farmed organically for years with minimal intervention, it provides a model of what viticulture can be when chemicals are abandoned and the ecosystem is allowed to flourish. The soils are a mix of sandy loam, glacial till, and alluvial deposits — poor in organic matter but rich in mineral complexity, with excellent drainage that forces vines to struggle. And as Thrussell says, "Grapes are like people: struggle leads to resilience." The Okanagan's hot days and cool nights create dramatic diurnal shifts that preserve acidity while pushing ripeness, making it possible to craft wines of both concentration and freshness without acidification or manipulation.
In addition to the family estate, Neon Eon sources from other organic and biodynamic growers in the valley — including a Zweigelt vineyard in Kaleden (source of the celebrated Pet-Nat) and sites across the West Kelowna and Summerland benches. Thrussell's first question when sourcing is always about farming: Are the grapes organic? Are the inputs minimal? Is the vineyard alive? If the answer is yes, the rest is extra. This is not a scattershot approach but a moral commitment — a refusal to work with conventionally farmed fruit that has been stripped of its microbial life by pesticides, herbicides, and synthetic fertilisers. The result is a portfolio that carries the microbial fingerprint of the Okanagan — the wild yeasts, the vineyard bacteria, the living soul of the land — in every bottle.
Summerland sits on the western shore of Okanagan Lake, a town of orchards and vineyards where the lake's thermal mass creates a moderating effect that is rare in the valley. The Sage Hills estate, source of much of Neon Eon's fruit, is farmed organically with minimal inputs — small amounts of sulfur for mildew control and organic manure every few years, nothing more. The soils are sandy and well-drained, with excellent lake exposure that moderates summer heat and preserves acidity. For Thrussell, Sage Hills is the origin point — the place where he learned that healthy grapes from living soils have everything they need to make great wine. It is also the place that taught him to watch the animals, to listen to the vineyard, and to understand that wine is not a product but an ecosystem.
The Okanagan Valley is Canada's most important wine region, yet it is also one of its most contradictory. A desert of sandy loam and glacial deposits is marketed as a Mediterranean paradise. Industrial wineries that look like petrochemical plants sit alongside small organic farms. Cabernet Sauvignon is planted in soils that beg for Gamay. For Neon Eon, the Okanagan is both home and critique — a place to make wine from its best sites while rejecting its worst excesses. The valley's hot days and cool nights, its lake-moderated microclimates, and its mineral-rich glacial soils provide the raw material. But it is the organic farming, the wild yeasts, and the zero-input philosophy that turn that raw material into something alive. This is the Okanagan not as marketing brochure but as agricultural reality — hot, dry, challenging, and beautiful.
Kaleden is a small community on the southern Okanagan Lake bench, a place of sandy soils, hot days, and a growing reputation for interesting viticulture. The Zweigelt vineyard that supplies Neon Eon's celebrated Pet-Nat is located here — organically farmed, with fruit that carries the intensity and spice of the southern Okanagan. Zweigelt, an Austrian hybrid of Blaufränkisch and St. Laurent, thrives in the Okanagan's heat while retaining acidity and aromatic complexity. For Thrussell, who discovered his passion for natural wine in Austria, working with Zweigelt is a homecoming — a connection between the Vienna restaurant that changed his life and the BC valley where he makes wine. The Kaleden site is proof that the Okanagan can produce grapes of international interest when the farming is right.
Neon Eon's farming philosophy is absolute: only organic or biodynamic grapes, and only from vineyards with minimal inputs. Thrussell is not interested in the loopholes of industrial organic — the approved substances that can still harm soils and build up over generations. He wants vineyards that are alive: buzzing with insects, visited by birds, rooted in living soil. The family vineyard at Sage Hills is the model — organic manure, minimal sulfur, and an ecosystem that supports itself. Other sites are vetted with the same rigour. This is not certification for marketing; it is a moral baseline. The zero-input cellar philosophy begins in the vineyard: if the grapes are not healthy, complex, and alive, there is no point in fermenting them. The living covenant between vine and winemaker is the foundation of everything Neon Eon produces.
Zero Inputs, Wild Yeasts & the Comic Book Hand
Neon Eon's winemaking philosophy is distilled in three words: "Don't drink dead wine." This is not a slogan but a technical absolute that governs every decision in the cellar. All wines are made using either organic or biodynamic grapes and have no added yeasts, sulfur, enzymes, nutrients, or any other inputs. There is nothing removed either — the wines are bottled unfined and unfiltered, carrying their sediment, their haze, and their microbial memory from vineyard to glass. As a result, the wines are alive, evolving, and sensitive to their environment — "if you're uncomfortable in the environment, the wine probably is too." This is winemaking as radical transparency — a refusal to hide behind chemistry, technology, or polish.
Thrussell is self-taught — "I was never some wine sensei's young grasshopper" — which means his techniques are intuitive, experimental, and free from the orthodoxies of enological school. He learns as he goes, adapting to what each vintage and each site demands. The spontaneous fermentation is the heart of the process: indigenous yeasts from the vineyard initiate and complete fermentation without any commercial inoculation. The absence of sulfur means that every wine is vulnerable to oxidation, volatility, and microbial instability — but it also means that every wine is a true expression of its place and its season, uncorrected and unmasked. The unfiltered, unfined bottling preserves the raw texture, the phenolic grip, and the living character that filtration would strip away.
What emerges from this zero-input approach is a style that is deliberately unpolished, vibrant, and unpredictable. The whites — Sauvignon Blanc, Riesling, the orange skin-contact cuvées — are hazy, textural, and electric, with acidity that cuts like a laser and flavours that seem to shift in the glass. The reds — Zweigelt, Merlot, Pinot Noir — are light, juicy, and alive, with none of the over-extraction or oak masking that defines conventional Okanagan reds. The pét-nats — Zweigelt, Riesling, Sparks — are fizzy, wild, and exuberant, capturing the energy of spontaneous fermentation in a bottle. And the labels, which change artist each year, are a visual reminder that every vintage is different, every wine is a one-off, and nothing is ever replicated. This is not winemaking for consistency; it is winemaking for honesty, colour, and the joy of not knowing exactly what will happen.
Zero Inputs, Wild Yeasts & the Don't-Drink-Dead-Wine Covenant
The guiding principle of Neon Eon's cellar is that the grape already knows how to become wine — the winemaker's job is to get out of the way. The organic and biodynamic viticulture provides healthy, complex grapes from living soils. The hand harvest ensures that only pristine fruit enters the fermenter. The spontaneous fermentation — initiated by indigenous yeasts from the vineyard itself — captures the microbial soul of the Okanagan. The absence of sulfur, enzymes, nutrients, and commercial yeast preserves the raw, living, evolving character of the wine. The absence of fining and filtering keeps the texture, the phenolics, and the microbial memory intact. And the changing artwork each vintage — from Will Dereume's Eggshell Comics to generative art to Ariel Davis — reflects the project's core belief: that wine, like art, should never repeat itself. The cellar is not a factory but a comic book studio — where Tyler Thrussell draws outside the lines, bottles the results unfined and unfiltered, and dares you to drink something that is unmistakably, defiantly alive.
Ultraviolet, Sparks, Florescence & the Electric Hand
The Neon Eon portfolio is a rapidly expanding gallery of electric, zero-input wines — each one a different colour, a different mood, a different answer to the question of what Okanagan fruit can be when left entirely to its own devices. The wines span skin-contact whites, hazy pét-nats, light reds, and orange cuvées — all united by wild yeast, zero sulfur, zero additives, and the playful, comic-book labels that have become the project's signature. Production is small and vintage-variable — Thrussell makes what the year offers, changes the blends, and never repeats himself. The 13+ wines in the current portfolio represent a province-wide exploration of organic possibility, from the sandy benches of Summerland to the hot slopes of Kaleden.
The Pleasantville Moment, the Comic Book & the Alive Hand
Neon Eon Wine is not merely a winery; it is a proof that a single glass in a Vienna restaurant can change a life — and that the life changed can go on to change a valley. In an era when the Okanagan wine industry is still dominated by industrial scale, chemical inputs, and the pursuit of "ultra-premium" polish, Tyler Thrussell demonstrates that the most profound Canadian wines sometimes come from a self-taught winemaker with no sensei, no enology degree, and no interest in the conventional playbook. The same zero-input approach that conventional wineries dismiss as reckless has become Neon Eon's signature — a guarantee that every bottle is a living, evolving ecosystem, not a sterilised product. The same wild yeasts that industrial winemakers fear have become the project's microbial fingerprint — the invisible signature of the Okanagan vineyard in every glass. And the same comic-book labels that some might dismiss as unserious have become the project's moral core — a visual declaration that wine should be fun, colourful, and accessible, not locked behind a wall of pretension.
The legacy of Neon Eon is the legacy of the self-taught, zero-input hand in Canadian viticulture. The ~2018 founding is not a distant memory but a living declaration — a reminder that the best wines are made by people who trust their instincts, who learn by doing, and who refuse to let textbooks dictate their creativity. The "Don't drink dead wine" motto is not a marketing slogan but a consumer education campaign — a call to reject the filtered, sulfited, homogenised wines that fill supermarket shelves and to embrace the hazy, unpredictable, alive wines that come from healthy grapes and patient hands. The changing artwork each year is not a gimmick but a philosophical statement — a recognition that wine, like art, should never repeat itself, and that every vintage is a new issue in an ongoing comic book.
The future of the project is tied to the future of the BC natural wine movement — to the growing recognition that the most authentic wines come not from the most famous estates but from the most committed rebels. As the Ultraviolet continues to introduce drinkers to the possibilities of Riesling-Zweigelt co-fermentation, as the Zweigelt Pet-Nat proves that Austrian varieties can thrive in the Okanagan desert, as the Florescence reconnects BC drinkers to the aromatic wines of Vienna, and as the Sauvignon Blanc Orange demonstrates that skin contact can transform even the most familiar variety into something wild and new, Neon Eon remains what Thrussell has always intended it to be: a zero-input, comic-book-wrapped, punk-rock natural wine project in the Okanagan Valley — structured not by tradition or technology but by colour, curiosity, and the eternal reminder that wine, like the grapes that make it, is a living thing that should never be tamed, filtered, or allowed to die in the bottle. The story of this winery is the story of a farm kid who saw colour for the first time in a Vienna restaurant and came home to paint the Okanagan in neon.
"Neon Eon is about respecting the grapes that go into making wine. A healthy grape has everything it needs to make great wine and, when picked at the right time, only needs a little helping hand to unleash its magic."
— Tyler Thrussell, Winemaker & Founder