I’m glad someone else finds this a completely messed up, and when Jancis Robinson says it’s one of the strangest wine laws in the world, I don’t know how anyone could argue against that.

The focus of the article is on the “Cellared in Canada” business, where Canadian wineries import grapes or juice from other countries and make the wine in BC. They don’t make a clear enough distinction for the average consumer except the fact that the bottle says in small print on the back “Cellared in Canada” and the wines are unable to qualify for VQA status. Not all wineries in BC or Canada that actually make wine from Canadian grown grapes choose to apply for VQA status, so this makes things a little more confusing. If you look at the BCLDB’s Quarterly Market Review for March 09, you’ll see that over 70% of “domestic” wine sold through the BCLDB last quarter was non-VQA, which would include some wine that is actually Canadian, but for the most part is “Cellared in Canada.” So this is big business indeed.

Ontario winery Closson Chase‘s owner Seaton McLean is making some noise and bringing awareness to, what actually is, a scandal. My favourite quote is “In France, if you put water into wine you go to jail.” So true.

There should be more transparent labelling laws forced on these huge corporations that own all the brands which we see on the shelf. If wineries like Jackson Triggs, Painted Turtle, Naked Grape, Sawmill Creek, etc want to make wine in BC at a cheap price point, I think that’s fantastic. They just need to prominantly display “Made from Grapes Grown in Chile” on the front of the label. Perhaps it comes down to the fact that this is too much of a cash cow for the Canadian govenment?

Also, maybe it’s just me…but isn’t it a least a little ironic that the Jackson-Triggs wine “Esprit” (which is the one covered in all the Olympic jazz) is raising money for the Vancouver Olympics and Olympians but isn’t even made from grapes grown in Canada?