The Cellared in Canada wine category, as I’ve written previously on this blog, is a marketing category whose first aim, it seems, is to create confusion with actual wines from Canada, since in fact, it can contain practically no Canadian wine, as opposed to the 100% homegrown VQA wines. Which doesn’t stop the LCBO from selling them side-by-side and mixed together on the shelves.
Apparently, the category has reached its goal perfectly. Now, even the LCBO is confused.
As an article in the St. Catharines Standard stated, last week, The Liquor Board had to apologize for featuring a Cellared in Canada wine (in a tetra-pak) in an ad for its Enviro Chic campaign that urged people to try 100-mile diet-style meals and thus favor local produce. That’s why a wine from a Niagara producer had been picked – but oops, it wasn’t really from the Niagara Peninsula at all.
But indeed, as an editorial published in several Sun Media newspapers stated, the mistake never should have happened in the first place: “The LCBO should know better than to allow this oversight, but it is, unfortunately, reflective of the LCBO’s general attitude towards VQA wines”, it says. Rightly so. Promoting Canadian bottlers and promoting Canadian wines are two different things.
The OLD Wine Case 
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