Was up in the Laurentians over xmas and the SAQ stores were 3/4s empty. Not great. That said, was in the LCBO in Toronto near king and spadina a few months ago and found a pretty good selection. Nothing special, but good enough to grab a few bottles for dinner that night.
On a glass half full note, The Vintages program does have regular lotteries for wines and spirits that are very hard to find in the US and doles them out at regular MSRP. Great way to get some of the harder to find whiskeys.
Over the spring, the SAQ warehouse workers went on strike resulting in shelves emptying and not being restocked. That was settled, but the SAQ distribution system’s weaknesses got severely exposed when the shelves didn’t get replenished all these months later with the strike being over a long time ago. Since the Laurentians is not in the main city cores of Montreal and Quebec City and we are out of ski season and sales have likely slowed despite the summer cottage country population moving in, they probably have low priority which explains the still empty shelves.
The LCBO at King and Spadina often brings in the leftovers from LCBO special events which is why you will often see Champagnes, Alsacian, and dessert wines that you never see anywhere else. I actually managed to replenish my Deiss bottles and Italian Passito collections from there.
I’ve never visited it but based on frequent search results the Ottawa store is another Chosen one.
Another sign of the downgrading is what happened to the Coxwell store (Coxwell and O’Connor). Back in the day it was an Aladdin’s Cave with an eclectic selection of Vintages and Classics products that didn’t make it to the main stream stores. Driven by the enthusiasm of one product consultant. Of course being a successful PC (I forget his name but have a funny feeling it may have been Richard or perhaps Robert) the KGBO would move him around, but he did return a couple of times. Eventually they killed it off and built a smaller glossier store with limited selection.
What is especially galling is the comparison with the SAQ (the Quebec monopoly) which has far superior selection and often slightly better pricing. Of course you have to solve the logistical issues. That’s another thing that needs to change, the interprovincial trade barriers.
The Queen’s Quay Vintages store in Toronto was where I shopped when visiting friends. They had a decent selection of Kistler, I recall. Some Whisky you don’t get in the states.
These LCBO threads always devolve into a muckfest, so I’m hesitant to pile-on…
I’m as anti-monopoly as anyone (I’ll avoid the obvious politics & union points) and most of the complaints are legitimate and especially unfortunate for visitors or someone looking for a trophy bottle or gift on any given day. That said - anyone living here that has a reasonable interest in wine should know the alternatives. If you can’t find the wines you want, then you may not be looking hard enough.
Lots of good wine is legally brought into the province. If your argument is you don’t want to buy a case of something - team up with your friends/ tasting group or work with the importer.
Prum was mentioned - it comes into the province. I have the past few vintages in my cellar. Even got to cherry pick.
Yes, the SAQ is a better bet for most French wines (Quelle Surprise!!), but historically if you collect Italian (I don’t apart from some Barolo) or many other most regions, then the LCBO probably has a bit more selection. They’re pretty equal on the suckage factor for a savvy consumer.
The good stuff is generally only available through online order or direct from distributors (must buy by the case from distributor), and don’t often make it to the retail stores.
The big stores in Toronto are good.
The store I’ve been to in Niagara Falls is terrible for anything resembling fine wine.
My son lives close by. Got him a couple bottles of Weller for like $30US and he picked them up there. Not bad.
I tried to get in to the Prum importer in Kitchener I think? and was totally stonewalled. Pretty much told to f-off and look at the LCBO.
Closer than that - PM sent.
Agreed on many of the points.
Outside of Summerhill, Trafalgar (Oakville), Queens Quay and Rideau in Ottawa, I basically don’t intentionally pay a visit to any other store unless I know a country-special is coming in to one of them. e.g. if I’m at the Weston and 401 area, I may drop into that store because they have some US product that no other store does. Ditto for Weston & Highway 7 for Italian, but the quantities and SKUs for the special extras have decreased IMHO.
Because of the pandemic, they opened “the box” that allowed restaurants to sell from their inventory as bottle shops as long as you bought a token food item to go with it. I don’t think they’re closing that box. You can find some places if you look hard enough that may be able to get you something a little different for an almost-reasonable price.
As has been intimated, there are various brokers, large and small, bringing in stuff. Of course, they have to pay the LCBO tariff and so the prices may be sky-high, but you can get some wines if you make the effort. The issue there, of course, is that you have to buy by the case (or occasionally, the half-case) and I almost never do that.
One of the big losses for us was when Lloyd Evans left the LCBO. He was a Burgundy champion and we used to get a pretty good selection and spread. I miss the days when he was a part of things there.
My limited perception is that the SAQ has suffered as well. Both the Atwater store in Montreal and the Gatineau signature store have good but less good than before selections. Still, e.g., I swept the Atwater shelves of the 2017 Louis Michel Grenouilles last year.
The various divergent sales systems seem to be becoming more complex and random now: online, vintages fortnightly releases, special offers, destination stores, etc., so luck seems increasingly to play a large part. For example, I missed out on the Tondonia Rosé online released a couple of weeks ago, when it all sold immediately, and have been kicking myself and seemingly vainly checking availability every day or two since. Strangely and randomly, a few showed up this morning! I ordered one, but wonder if it was “really” in stock. I will find out soon.
It is. I got a case.
This. The best SAQ stores are still: Maisonneuve, Rockland, Atwater, Beaubien, Laurier W. and De La Montagne. But nowadays, the wines are offered on SAQ.com before they hit the shelves (for most wines people on this board are interested in). For small allocations, they all get sold online and never see a shelf.
Also, since COVID, the store ordering process was changed. The products were being pushed by the warehouse rather then being requested by each store. This resulted in stores having an inventory which did not reflect what their customers typically purchased.
So all in all. Your perception is correct.
Edit: I forgot the SAQ store in Quebec on Blvd Laurier in the list of best stores.
You didn’t miss out on the Rosado a couple weeks ago. There was a system issue and the release was delayed. Luckily, the bat signal went out early this morning and I was able to snag some.
Amazing; I really was lucky then as I simply checked randomly and it all disappeared almost instantly after I placed my order
Damn. I did not get requested notification. They really should hold wines like this till the next classics release so at least we all have equal shot at the roulette wheel.
I recently joined up with the agency who just began bringing Prum into the province last year and I can tell you JJ Prum specifically did not want their wines to just be sold in the LCBO through once-a-year offers. (Not an ad, promise! Just a note.)
There is an app called ‘By The Case’ in the apple app store and you can look up pretty much any producer and it will tell you the Ontario importer (if there is one).
I have favorites + notifications on for a bunch of stuff.
I have found the back in stock email notification comes 12-24 hours late. I picked up some more 19 Drouhin Clos des Mouches which had a few bottles show up at front and spadina last week. I got the email it was back in stock the next day. I would not rely on those emails.
Re. “Tondonia Rosé online . . . strangely and randomly, a few showed up this morning”
Same thing this morning with the Tondonia Blanco 2010. It just appeared randomly (and I had checked earlier this morning and it still showed out of stock then). I had added my name to the list to be informed when it became available, but never got an e-mail. Having a better idea of how the system operates with seemingly random dates for online releases, I tend to check things daily now for upcoming releases of interest.