‘100%, through-and-through, pure-Wisconsin’ wine

Rachel Kroeger

Staff

June 30, 2025

MALONE – Decades in the making, Eugene “Shy” Ziegler said his family’s winery off the east shoreline of Lake Winnebago pays homage to both the Badger State – offering its patrons purely Wisconsin-grown wines – and to his father, Leonard, who “always dabbled in home-winemaking.”

“We’re carrying on the tradition of his home-winemaking, but we took it to the next level to where we commercialized it,” Shy said.

It was “back in the late ’90s,” when Shy said he took up home-winemaking, followed soon after by his brother, Randy.

“About five to seven years after (me), my brother Randy became a home-winemaker, and we (started working) together (in) approximately 2010,” he said.

As the brothers began to enter their golden years, Shy said they started discussing their plans for “life 2.0.”

“We said that if we found the right property, we would consider planting ourselves a vineyard and opening up a commercial winery,” he said. “We looked at several properties, and this one that we finally purchased – with the buildings and everything – we (thought) would be absolutely perfect.”

After purchasing the property located at W3953 Winnebago Heights Road in October 2015, Shy said he, Randy and their two other business partners – their other brother, Joe, and Shy’s wife, Jennifer – understood that a lot of hard work was yet to be done before Ziegler Winery could open its doors.

“We were well prepared for that,” Shy said.

‘The story is…’

Prior to the Zieglers purchasing the lakeshore property right outside of Fond du Lac, Shy said “the story behind” the land started with one lucky man.

“This man won (the) $111 million Powerball lottery, he bought all this land, and he ended up developing it and turning it into a kids camp,” he said.

That man, Shy said, operated “Camp Winnegator” for roughly a decade before “deciding to get out of it” and closing the camp.

Throughout the years between when they bought the property in 2015 and the winery’s grand opening Oct. 5, 2019, Shy said he and his family built up the infrastructure necessary to operate a vineyard – most importantly, planting the grapes.

“We started planting grapes in 2016, in 2017 (and) in 2018, and (then) we started working on the buildings,” he said. “There were no grape vines here or anything. (We built this) all from scratch.”

In 2018, Shy said they started converting the property’s old horse stable into the vineyard’s main gathering area.

“We modified (the stable) into what is now our customer premise that holds 225 people inside (our) large tasting room,” he said. “It’s (open) year-round.”

That same year, Shy said the Ziegler Winery partners harvested the grapes for their “first vintage” – the first wine produced from their own grapes – and started to bottle wine.

“We did 90% of the work ourselves, with family and friends and 100 hours a week just to get everything prepared,” he said.

Now, Shy said the vineyard’s footprint has grown to cover a bit more than a dozen of the property’s more than 100 acres – growing all of the grapes for any one of Ziegler’s “30-some wines out there.”

“We, over a three-year period, planted approximately 7,000 vines, focused on growth and developed all the trellis systems,” he said. “Now, we have 13 different cultivars sitting on about 13 acres of land.”

Award-winning Wisconsin wine

Upon deciding to pursue a wine-based business venture, Shy said he and his partners agreed to go full-tilt Wisconsin.

“Randy and I went around to a lot of other wineries, along with my wife and my brother, Joe,” he said. “A lot of them bring in fruit from Washington, New York (or) California, (and) we always said that we actually want to try to sell a true Wisconsin experience.”

That meant growing their own vineyard, Shy said, as opposed to importing grapes from other wine-country regions.

“We started researching with the Wisconsin Grape Growers Association, got involved with that a little bit, took some classes down in Madison, networked with a bunch of other vineyard owners and winemakers, and they (told us) growing grapes (in Wisconsin) is extremely hard (and) very labor intensive,” he said. “However, we were ready for the challenge.”

Though most of the Badger State does not lend itself well to wine grape growing, Shy said some areas – like the region that houses Ziegler Winery – are exceptions to that.

Back in 2012, he said a section of Wisconsin – “about 30 miles in(land) from Lake Michigan, from Kenosha all the way up through Door County… called the Niagara Escarpment” – was designated the “Wisconsin Ledge” by the American Viticultural Association (AVA).

“We knew right then and there this was going to be an excellent spot for growing grapes, just with all the types of soils from the glaciers, the growing-degree days, the rainfall we get, the snow cover, the sunlight, (etc.),” he said. “Also, we’re on, I think, a 43.94 parallel. (So), if you circle the globe, we are in the same regions as Tuscany, Italy (and) Bordeaux, France – and they’re all designated as AVAs.”

Even further, Shy said being on the shoreline of Lake Winnebago helps moderate the temperatures so they don’t get as much winter die-off or spring frost events as other vineyards.

“We knew we could make internationally award-winning wines, and we have,” he said. “(We’ve won) multiple international awards – gold, double gold, Best in Show, many silvers, many bronze – and, again, we want to showcase Wisconsin (and what) the Wisconsin Ledge has to offer. One-hundred percent, through-and-through, pure Wisconsin. A lot of wineries can’t say that.”

‘A labor of love’

Though it can be hard work, Shy said he, Jennifer, Randy and Joe are committed to growing the best wine grapes Wisconsin has to offer – despite the doubt that it’s even possible.

“I think it’s more of a misconception that you cannot grow wine grapes here in the State of Wisconsin,” he said. “You have to grow more northern-hardy hybrids, (like) the French-American hybrids – the ones that stand the Wisconsin winters.”

Those grapes, Shy said, can still make delicious wine, such as Ziegler’s award-winning Marquette.

“The Marquette grape is crossed with a Pinot noir… (and) that’s why it is such a wonderful grape,” he said.

Ziegler Winery’s vines, Shy said, were specifically chosen to produce wines comparable to those made of grapes they couldn’t successfully grow in the state.

“You’re not going to grow a Cabernet or a Chardonnay (grape) here in the State of Wisconsin – it’s not going to happen,” he said, “(But), you can make absolutely stunning, fantastic wines that mimic all the harvest parameters of, say, a Chardonnay (compared to) our Itasca grape; the Pinot noirs (to) our Marquette grape; (and) some of the more medium-to-full-bodied reds of Cabernets (to) some of our blends. It’s just phenomenal what you can do.”

All of Ziegler’s grapes, Shy said, are hand-harvested by himself, his partners, their friends, family and dedicated staff.

“The reason we hand-harvest versus mechanically harvesting is because if you have any fruit that’s compromised – any bird predation, fungus, sour rot or anything like that – we either walk by it (or) pick it and drop it,” he said. “We only pick the best-of-the-best fruit that goes into our wines, which goes immediately up into the production building.”

Similarly, Shy said all of Ziegler’s wines are produced on site by himself and their employees.

“We process everything that day, and the fruits – whether being open fermented for the reds, or they’re going into the tanks as juice – we process everything,” he said. “We go through the entire ferment (process), we go through all the blends, the filtration, all the bentonite treatments, into the bottle (and) out to the consumer (all) on site.”

The two head winemakers of the Ziegler operation, Shy said, are himself and Randy.

“When my brother, Randy, and I are working in the winery, we’re like chefs,” he said. “It’s really fun, it’s very enjoyable (and), really, a lot of work – but it’s a labor of love.”

This, Shy said, has led to a “close-knit” culture at Ziegler Winery among not only their family but their staff as well.

“A business like this is never possible unless you have the full support of (your) family and the staff,” he said. “My wife (and) the people she hires, they’re just absolutely great, wonderful employees. We actually consider them our family members.”

A fitting culture, Shy said, for a business born out of his father’s love for home-winemaking and their collective love for the State of Wisconsin.

“We’re trying to sell the Wisconsin experience and (our) story,” he said. “We work with all kinds of local cheese makers, sausage makers, artisans (and) craft breweries as much as we can. We only have room for so much in our portfolio, but we don’t just talk about it. We actually practice what we preach, and we’ve met a lot of good partners…(and) a lot of friends along the way. It’s been a really cool journey.”

To learn more about Ziegler Winery and its Wisconsin-grown wines, visit its website – zieglerwinery.com – or social media pages.