According to Statscan, there is a lack of love for wine in my home province of Saskatchewan. It’s easy to shrug off that a province full of farmers are just loyal beer and spirit drinkers, but I believe there is something different at play here. One only needs to see that, per capita, the people of Saskatchewan are not spending much more on Beer than most other provinces.
I was recently in Saskatchewan visiting family for Christmas and had the pleasure of visiting four different Liquor Store locations. Let’s just say that even as a wine writer I wasn’t making the trips because of the scenery; I had to visit three different stores to track down a bottle of Veuve Clicquot Champagne. If you’re not familiar with Champagne, Clicquot is essentially the Honda Accord of the Champagne world and available in nearly every LCBO in Ontario. The issue in Saskatchewan comes to selection and quality.
Saskatchewan is basically the halfway point between the Okanagan and Niagara and the selection in the liquor store is pathetic. To be frank, I am being polite. There are presently more than 130 wineries in Ontario and over 200 in BC and the selection available at the liquor store comes from maybe twenty from both provinces. The SLGA is carrying wines from less than 1% of the producers in Canada. There are a few good value selections for example: Sibling Rivalry from Henry of Pelham and the Generation Seven wines from Chateau des Charmes, but there is a huge gap in the SLGA catalogue when it comes carrying premium wines (I reluctantly use the word premium; give me twenty dollars and I could turn it into a GREAT bottle of wine).
We all know the line from Field of Dreams “if you build it, they will come”. I believe the same thing holds true with regards to wine in Saskatchewan. If I were living somewhere that my only choice in buying a car is the Hyundai Pony (with apologies to all the Hyundai Pony fans out there), I would probably buy a bicycle instead. I challenge the SLGA to smarten up and carry better and more wine.
