Wine market in Canada

The Canadian wine market is marked by strong regional differences. French-speaking Quebec is dominated by French wines: more than 40% of total placements in Quebec are wines from France, with only 6% Canadian and 5% from the US. In Ontario, the largest province of Canada, Italian wines have the lion’s share of all placements (obviously because of the diversity of Italian wine), while Canadian wines strongly lead among by-the-glass placements (and probably by overall volume), most of them are local to the province. British Columbia is even more focused on the consumption of domestic wines, with an absolute majority of by-the-glass and by-the-bottle placements being Canadian and local.

The regionalism of the Canadian wine trade is to a certain extent defined by protectionist policies of provincial governments and internal trade barriers within the country.

Jackson-Triggs, a Canadian wine brand owned by Arterra Wine Company, is by far the most popular label across the country with the notable exception of Quebec, where it has almost no distribution in the on-premise sector. Arterra also represents Ruffino, the most popular Italian brand in Canada, and New Zealand’s Kim Crawford – these brands with an almost equal number of placements for both BTB and BTG share second and third place nationwide.

Although non-vinifera grapes play a significant role in the Canadian wine industry, with Vidal being the most important, the representation of non-vinifera wines in on-premise is disproportionately low. Only 6% of Canadian accounts list at least one wine made from a non-vinifera variety (with this variety explicitly mentioned). This corresponds to only 0.3% of total wine placements.

Alcohol legislation in Canada differs at the province level and remains a political issue. Eight of ten Canadian provinces operate government-owned liquor stores, although in most Canadian provinces private stores are also allowed. However, in Ontario, the most populated province, around 80% of wine is sold through the chain of the Liquor Control Board of Ontario (LCBO) stores. A similar situation exists in Quebec, with its Société des Alcools du Québec (SAQ) chain stores. This organization also imports wine in bulk, and 30% of all Quebec wine imports were imported by the SAQ in bulk and bottled in Canada.^[4]

Compiled and checked by Ilya Zabolotnov