While craft beer fans are still lamenting the takeover of the old Duggan’s space by Molson Coors subsidiary Six Pints Specialty Beer Company, there was one good piece of news for the province’s microbreweries last week. Due to some last-minute intervention by Liberal MPP Grant Crack, licensed liquor delivery services (yes, they exist) will now be able to purchase their beer directly from small brewers, not just from the LCBO or the Beer Store. This was all precipitated by the shutdown of the new delivery service run by Beau’s All-Natural on the day it was supposed to open. What’s more, the incident has sparked a 15-month full-scale review of liquor licensing practices in the province. Some items on the craft brewers’s wish lists no doubt include: an all-craft beer retail store, to escape the Beer Store’s stranglehold and the vagaries of LCBO listings; the ability to share trucks between small breweries to save on shipping costs; and easier access to out-of-province markets. Not earth-shaking stuff, perhaps, but when it comes to liquor control in this province, things proceed only by baby steps. Read the entire story [Toronto Star] »
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Seems no one likes overpaying for booze. Following last week’s auditor general report, which brought the LCBO’s unusual pricing policies to light, the Canadian Restaurant and Foodservices Association has registered its displeasure, too. In an open letter to Ontario finance minister Dwight Duncan, the CFRA is demanding that restaurant and bar owners be allowed to negotiate wholesale prices with the board. At present, restaurateurs only receive an HST credit, but otherwise pay just as much if not more than consumers would for a given bottle. “We urge you to follow the AG’s lead and undertake a comprehensive review of the antiquated and unfair policies of the LCBO monopoly,” wrote Ron Reaman, vice-president of the Ontario branch. Under the LCBO’s “fixed-pricing” structure, the agency doesn’t haggle with its suppliers, which sometimes means it deliberately pays more than a supplier’s initial offer (confused? See our primer on how it all works). Likewise, it won’t haggle with bulk purchasers, either. For consumers, it’s not much of a choice: overpay at the store or over-overpay at the bar. (In its defense, the agency does claim to offer the lowest retail prices in Canada.) Read the entire story [The Globe and Mail] »
Booze Economics 101: Why the LCBO happily charges more and earns less than it might
(Image: Mike Gifford)
Better grab a bottle of Wild Turkey and sit down before trying to understand this one. In an annual report released on Monday, provincial Auditor General Jim McCarter sank his teeth into a policy that makes the Liquor Control Board of Ontario pay more than it has to for wholesale booze—sometimes even demanding the privilege. You’d imagine the LCBO, as one of the largest purchasers of alcohol in the world, could, if it wanted to, use its clout to get lower wholesale prices, thereby reaping greater profits for provincial coffers or passing those savings on to consumers. Instead, it ascribes to a mystifying stratagem that brought on the Toronto Sun headline “Welcome to Suckerville, Ontario.”
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David Lawrason reveals his holiday wine buying strategy, along with nine of his favourite festive bottles
What are the best holiday dinner wines? This is a question I get every year, usually at the 11th hour when the asker is dashing off to the LCBO, only to find the selection depleted and the lineups winding back into the beer fridges. To those pathologically last-minute shoppers, I say break the cycle: shop early and shop once. With a little planning and a few extra dollars, you can put together a collection of wines that will make the evening truly remarkable. I’ve chosen nine of my favourites, including an award-winning Ontario bubbly for welcoming guests, bird-perfect pairings and a mellow sipper for after the feast has been demolished. They’re all excellent options for toasting the season of giving and gluttony. Read the rest of this entry »
Latest batch of Samuel Adams Utopias beer sells out in under an hour—at $115-per-bottle
Last Friday, starting at 9 a.m., the LCBO made 150 bottles of Samuel Adams Utopias beer available to the public, with another 60 orders held for liquor licensees. Made from a blend of various batches of beer, some aged for up to 18 years, and weighing in at 27 per cent alcohol, the brew has achieved cult status. Indeed, as Crystal Luxmore explained last week in The Grid, 1,675 people entered last year’s lottery to win one of a mere 70 bottles.
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Weekend Reading List: top stories from our sister sites, from runway panache to butternut squash
Every weekend we round up the highlights from the other websites in the St. Joseph Media family. Check them out, after the jump.
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Why Greek wines are about to become the next big thing
Greek wines are as intriguing as their popular French and Italian counterparts, and they’re half the price
(Illustration: Jack Dylan)
Pine-scented retsina has left a bitter taste with many wine drinkers, but Greek wine has moved on, and it’s poised to become the next big thing, with more Greek labels making their way into trendy restaurants beyond the Danforth. More than 300 indigenous grapes are grown in the country’s 28 wine-growing appellations, which are home to more than 650 wineries. And the quality and value has only been getting better over the last 10 years. The new Greek wines combine the firm acid and mineral structure of many European wines with the ripe, bright fruitiness often found in hotter New World regions. The country’s core strength is aromatic yet steely whites, like moschofilero and assyrtiko, that will appeal to riesling and gewürztraminer fans. Lighter-weight, complex reds like xinomavro and agiorgitiko are similar to pinot noir and Italian nebbiolo. The LCBO’s selection is still meagre, but Vintages carries some excellent-value bottles, while Kolonaki Group, an Ontario-based Greek wine specialist, offers great buys by the case. Here, nine bottles worth trying, even if you’re not serving souvlaki.
Chris Nuttall-Smith on the craft-brewing movement that’s taking over Toronto
Bar Volo is the spiritual home to many of Ontario’s best beer makers (Image: Igor Yu)
In a dingy former office at the back of Great Lakes Brewery in Etobicoke, nine waist-high, 50-litre fermenters gently burble with what might be some of the most interesting beers ever brewed in Ontario, spitting out carbon dioxide and foam through clear plastic tubes as the yeast in the liquid does its work. There’s a ginger-goosed Belgian saison in the canister marked Ginga Ninja, while the sweet, fragrant, whitish brew in the one called Bag ’O Mango is feeding on a couple of kilograms of chopped fresh fruit. Mike Lackey, Great Lakes’ ball-capped and goateed experimental brewer, has also got a couple of wheat beers going (one of which is marked Miami Weiss), plus four hop-addled, bitter-edged, high-alcohol India Pale Ales (including RoboHop, My Bitter Wife and The Etobichoker) and a cloudy, oaky, slightly cheesy and intensely sour beer—one of the first of its kind in Canada—that’s made with lactobacillus yogurt bacteria and a finicky wild yeast called brettanomyces. (That one is named Heavy Bretting.)
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Introducing: The Beer Boutique, something just a little bit different from the Beer Store
Liberty Village’s new Beer Boutique is the Beer Store’s attempt to craft a more welcoming retail environment (Image: Leo Petaccia)
With the rise of craft breweries, Ontario drinkers have been clamouring for access to a wider variety of brews. The Beer Boutique, which officially opened on Tuesday in Liberty Village, is the Beer Store’s answer to that demand (and to the LCBO’s steady erosion of their market dominance). Targeted at beer drinkers both discerning and recently re-educated, the idea is to turn grabbing a Friday-night sixer into a legitimate shopping experience, perhaps with a a quick lesson in beer appreciation thrown in on the side. According to Ted Moroz, president of the Molson-Coors-Labatt-Sleeman joint venture, “The store was created from listening to our urban consumers who told us they wanted a space where they can learn about new beers, as well sample and enjoy food pairings.”
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Nine West Coast wines that are flying off the shelves
(Image: Jack Dylan)
California wine has always had a certain easygoing appeal, and the region’s big-ticket bottles have been a staple in collectors’ cellars for the last three decades. In my opinion, however, they’ve also suffered from excess—they’re too expensive, too candy-coated, too oaky and too hot on the finish. I get angry when I taste a $300 Napa Valley icon wine and discover it barely deserves 90 points—the quality doesn’t match the price. But a new generation of California winemakers is breaking away from tradition and working with new blends and grape varieties. Regions like Mendocino County, the Sonoma Coast and Paso Robles, which typically live in the shadow of Napa and Sonoma, are producing wine that’s more refined, better balanced and much more affordable (in the $20 to $40 range). This improvement, combined with a strong Canadian dollar, has boosted sales at the LCBO’s Vintages stores, where, for the first time ever, California wines are outselling those from Italy and France. In 2010, they brought in $70.8 million, which is a 21.5 per cent increase from 2009 and accounts for a fifth of all Vintages sales. I recently tasted several dozen of these top sellers and picked the best of the bunch.
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Cupcake trend reaches its logical conclusion with new flavoured vodka
(Image: Cupcake Vodka)
Underdog Wine and Spirits, an American alcohol producer, is introducing a new niche market vodka aimed, supposedly, at the adult millennial (and not at 14-year-old girls): Cupcake Vodka. The dessert-inspired spirit comes in a variety of flavours, including Original (which we’re assuming tastes like, um, cake), Chiffon, Devil’s Food and Frosting. Cupcake Vodka is also six-times distilled to “remove impurities while delivering a mouth-feel reminiscent of an indulgent delicious treat.” Given the LCBO’s aversion to booze that might appeal to youngsters, we don’t think we’ll be seeing this in Toronto any time soon.
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The sipper club: meet the city’s competitive cabal of top sommeliers
Will Predhomme belongs to a competitive cabal of top sommeliers who sniff, sip and spit their way through hundreds of bottles a week. They do this to help you decide what to drink with your dinner, while making you think it was your idea all along
One hundred and fifty-one people have reservations at Canoe tonight. Among these are many Bay Streeters, a couple celebrating their 25th wedding anniversary, dozens of people on dates, including the bar manager from Crush, and a young woman who plans to propose to her boyfriend over dinner. The two private dining rooms are fully booked.
Canoe, part of the ever-expanding Oliver and Bonacini empire, is routinely considered one of the finest restaurants in the city. Last summer, in a rigorous competition held by the Canadian Association of Professional Sommeliers, known as CAPS, Canoe’s head sommelier, Will Predhomme, was proclaimed Ontario’s best. Predhomme has devoted a third of his life—he’s 29—to wine scholarship. He now knows more about wine than almost anyone in Toronto.
Just after 5 p.m., the bar area begins to fill up with commuters sipping cocktails as they wait for the traffic on the clogged Gardiner, 54 floors below, to dissipate. One of the restaurant’s first guests, a retired trial lawyer, arrives. As a young female host escorts him to his large corner table, he puts an arm around her shoulder. “I don’t like to pay bills,” he says. “I want a fucking account. Last time I was here, I offered those ladies”—referring to the hosts who greeted him at his last visit—“$300 and told them to set up an account for me. And I still don’t have one.” He and his three dining companions, Canoe regulars, have brought in several bottles of their own wine, including a cabernet franc from the ex-lawyer’s private vineyard in Tuscany. When Predhomme arrives at the table to discuss the wine, the ex-lawyer, captivatingly bratty in a way that only the rich and sort-of-powerful can be, repeats his complaint. “Look, I spend about $50,000 a year at Bymark, and I’d do the same here if I had a fucking account.” Predhomme is unmoved, but gracious. “If you give me your contact information,” he says, “I’ll make sure that it gets to the right people.”
“You’ll get me an account?”
“I’ll look into it.”
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Return to Oz: the LCBO is introducing 30 new Australian wines. Here, David Lawrason picks the top nine
Faced with tanking sales, Australia’s winemakers are discovering smaller is better
(Illustration: Jack Dylan)
Just three years ago, Australian wines were the darlings of the New World: cheap and cheeky, with cute critter names. But wine fashion is as fickle and furious as an outback brush fire, and Aussie sales around the world have been spiralling steadily downward. Recession-stricken consumers moved to cheaper wines from Argentina, Chile and South Africa for their New World fix, and, let’s face it, Australia’s mass-produced shirazes and chardonnays were starting to seem monotonously similar. Add to this downturn years of vineyard-crippling drought, and it seemed Australia was down for the count. However, on a recent visit, I was pleasantly surprised to see that Aussie winemakers are focusing on regionality, single-vineyard production and distinctive new grape varieties and blends. The last couple of vintages have shown an improved balance of alcohol, acidity and fruit, without losing their easy-drinking appeal. This month, the LCBO will introduce more than 30 new Australian labels that are, for the most part, high quality, moderately priced and full of character. Here, my picks from the new wave of wines from Down Under.
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Rosedale-Summerhill Guide: 23 need-to-know places along Yonge Street’s poshest stretch
Yonge Street’s poshest stretch, from Ramsden Park up to the Summerhill LCBO, has two strong suits: food and decor. Locals from the tree-lined side streets keep the shops going during the week, while the weekend brings floods of shoppers from further afield. Here, our list of 23 essential restaurants, food shops, furniture stores, clothing boutiques and beauty parlours along tony Toronto’s main drag.
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Reinvention tour: Ontario vintners are showing off their chardonnays and changing minds about the infamous ’80s grape
(Illustration: Jack Dylan)
The consumer revolt against chardonnay, known as the ABC (anything but chardonnay) movement, hasn’t stopped Ontario winemakers from producing excellent chardonnays. The province’s cool climate and limestone-rich soils provide similar conditions to those in Burgundy, France—the region that put chardonnay on the map with such wines as chablis, pouilly-fuissé and meursault. As the Ontario industry and its vines mature, home-grown chardonnays are becoming truly impressive, especially the more expensive varieties that are fermented and aged in French oak. To get the word out, Ontario vintners are sending their best bottlings (as selected in a blind tasting by Ontario wine critics) abroad to wine fairs. At the first event in London last year, pundits were pleasantly surprised to discover such high-quality chardonnays from a province known mostly for icewine. The enthusiastic response prompted Ontario wineries to repeat the performance this month for Manhattan’s wine critics. Niagara will also become an international chardonnay hub this July, when it hosts a multi-winery festival in honour of the cool-climate grape. To prime your palates, we’ve selected the region’s most seductive bottles. Read the rest of this entry »
