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“The LCBO (Liquor Control Board of Ontario) and young adults aged 19 to 34, women, and savvier
SAQ (Société des alcools du Québec) have been wine drinkers.
trying to get people to spend more money and
buy less because that fits with govern-ment social Sparkling wine is also gaining, albeit from a small
policy,” Halstead said. “It’s also good for business base, led by the popularity of Prosecco. The per-
because you make more money from one high- centage of wine drinkers who consumed sparkling
er-priced bottle than you would two lower-priced wine in the past year increased from just 12% in
bottles.” 2014 to 19% in 2018. Consumption of locally pro-
duced sparkling wine has decreased however, with
Four out of five Canadians surveyed drank wine most consumers choosing imports from France,
within the past year, compared to seven in 10 Spain, and Italy—specifically Prosecco.
who drank white. The most popular reds were
merlot, cabernet sauvignon, pinot noir, shi-raz/ Halstead said many American brands are continu-
syrah and malbec. White wine drinkers were ing to do well in the Canadian market, par-ticularly
attracted to chardonnay, sauvignon blanc, pi-not mainstream Californian brands like Barefoot, Gallo,
grigio/pinot gris, riesling and moscato. No matter Woodbridge and Apothic.
what wines drinkers chose, they pre-ferred wines
from California’s Napa Valley, Ontario’s Niagara As you’d expect in a country where provincially
Peninsula, the B.C. Okanagan, the Bordeaux area of run liquor boards maintain tight control over wine
France and Tuscany in Italy. sales (with the exception of Alberta), three-quar-
ters of wine consumers bought their wine from
Consumption of rosé is going up, particularly government-controlled liquor stores. Other nota-
among regular wine consumers in Quebec. While ble sales channels (representing from one-fifth to
rosé used to be a seasonal beverage, rosé fans one-quarter of consumers in each case) included
are now enjoying it throughout the year, not only grocery stores, wine stores at-tached to grocery
in summer. The drink is particularly popular with stores, private liquor stores or dépanneurs (conve-
nience stores).
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