Let's start the year with this positive statement: If you live in the National Capital Region, you have easy access to one of the best selections of wine in the world.
Think of it this way. The LCBO/Vintages carries thousands of brands of wine from all over the world. Shop at the Ottawa flagship store at Rideau Street and King Edward Avenue, and you have just about everything on the LCBO general list and an excellent selection downstairs in the big Vintages store. Vintages adds another thousand or more bottles throughout the year in its twice-monthly releases.
Then go to one of the two larger SAQ stores across the river, 705 Boul. de la Carrière and 31 Boul. du Plateau, both in the Hull sector of Gatineau. You'll find thousands more wines to choose from. The good thing is that, although there's some overlap in their inventories, the SAQ and the LCBO are more complementary than competitive.
The LCBO has a good balance of Old and New World wines, with a reasonable selection from Ontario. The SAQ is heavily weighted toward the Old World and especially France, as you'd expect. Its selection of New World wines is quite limited, and Ontario is almost non-existent. (But you will find some interesting wines from Quebec.)
Put the two together (they're 15 or 20 minutes' drive apart) and you have an enviable selection of wines.
Next, add the private wine stores in Ottawa. There's the Wine Rack (mainly Jackson-Triggs and Inniskillin) and Vineyards Estate Wines (Hillebrand Estates and Peller Estates). They're mainly in supermarkets, and many people think they carry only low-end wines. In fact, they sell a good range from the premium and higher tiers, too.
Finally, two Ontario wineries have stores in Ottawa. Niagara's Château des Charmes has two, and Lake Erie North Shore's Colio Estates has one. Both offer a good range of wines in price and style, including their top-tier wines.
Put it all together, and wine-lovers in this region have a much bigger selection at hand than anywhere else in Quebec and Ontario — and, for that matter, anywhere in Canada.
While it's true there are more brands in Alberta's privatized system, many are in only one or two stores in selected cities. Here we're talking nearly as many brands as in Alberta, but within the relatively small National Capital Region.
There's a small legal issue, of course, in that it's illegal to buy wine in Quebec and bring it into Ontario unless you pay the Ontario taxes and LCBO mark-up. So make sure you pop into an LCBO on your way home, declare your cross-border purchases, and ask to pay the taxes and mark-up. (If you do, let me know their reaction.)
The little legal thing aside, the great selection of wine at our disposal in this region should make us all feel happy as we start the new year. There's no way any of us can taste all those wines in the next 12 months, or even the next 12 years. And it means there's no reason to drink the same wine more than once if you don't want to.
I suggest that, for 2006, we all resolve to break out of any vinous ruts we might have gotten into. Let's go out and buy wines made from varieties we haven't tried, grown in places we've overlooked.
It's a resolution that will be fun and easy to keep, unlike that exercise one.
Four flavourful reds from the Mediterranean region to start the year. Med reds are infused with sunshine to help you through the winter.