Just to be clear: I'm not the one whining. However, Canadians who want to pay less than $10 a bottle for a Canadian-made wine are. Or maybe they aren't--but what they're buying isn't exactly Canadian.
Canada sells wines that are "cellared in Canada." That means that about 30 percent of the wine is made in Canada from Canadian grapes. The rest is wine that's imported, in bulk, from somewhere else (France, Australia, California), and blended with the Canadian stuff. Then, presumably, it goes through all the rest of the hoop-de-do wine goes through, including being stored in a cellar while
flavo(u)rs blend or ripen or whatever it is they do. Hence the term.
In Ontario, it's sold in the "Canadian Wines" section of the liquor store, but if you know what signage to look for and read labels, you can see what's "cellared" in Canada vs. what may be more properly termed a "Canadian" wine.
The lines between what's Canadian and what's not are blurry, neither from excess wine consumption nor from tears at paying more than $10 for the bottle. That's all I'm sayin'.
For an interesting discussion of "Cellared in Canada" and the grape industry, go to this story by Alan McGinty.
