by Vic Harradine

You may have recently seen the glossy ‘Bring it home…’ brochure from the Liquor Control Board of Ontario (LCBO). The thrust of the message is - after visiting a winery in the Okanagan Valley, British Columbia, the smiling twosome on the cover ordered a case of wine from there and had it shipped home to Ontario through the LCBO ‘Private Ordering Department’.

Anyone in Ontario of legal drinking age may order wine from a winery in another province or territory—by the case, for personal consumption—and have it shipped back to Ontario. The limit for having wine shipped from other Canadian provinces to Ontario is nine litres, equaling what most of us think of as a ‘case’—12 x 750 mL bottles. In Ontario, one must place the order through the LCBO Private Ordering Department and not directly with the winery.

Winecurrent contacted Chris Layton, Media Relations Coordinator, Corporate Communications for the LCBO for clarification and he responded quickly with the following information. “Under the federal Importation of Intoxicating Liquors Act (IILA), it is not legal for a winery in one province to ship a case of wine to a consumer in another province. The IILA requires that beverage alcohol products being shipped from one province to another be consigned to the provincial liquor board in the province it is being sent to and all required provincial taxes be paid.”
 
In further correspondence, Mr. Layton added, “In June 2011, the LCBO adopted a policy clarifying that it is legal for individuals to bring wines, spirits and beer into Ontario on their person from other Canadian provinces or territories, as long as it is for personal consumption.”

What does all this mean to you? For most who buy wines at the LCBO on a regular basis, the challenge is not in having enough choice, but in narrowing the choice down from the myriad of labels on offer. However, there are special occasions when one has visited a winery in another province, usually BC, but also Québec and Nova Scotia, and wish to have some of that ‘special’ wine once back home. If you didn’t bring it back on your person you may want to have it shipped at a later date.

How much will it cost? After being asked as to how much a $20 wine at the winery in the Okanagan might cost when ordered through the LCBO Private Ordering Department, Chris answered, “A better way to characterize the pricing of wine in a private order is to say that the wine would be priced in the same manner as if the LCBO were bringing it in to put on the shelf. There’s no extra charge for the private order as we consolidate these orders with others that we have coming from B.C. The only time there would be an extra charge is if the consumer wanted the order faster than the two to three week turnaround time in which case we would bring it in by courier. However, most consumers bringing in wine from BC via private order are not likely buying the wine for immediate consumption so they are willing to wait two to three weeks.”

LCBO retail stores offer a broad selection of wines from all over the world, including other provinces—with the latter, admittedly, in quite limited numbers. One only has to travel to any other country to realize Ontario residents are offered an incredibly wide selection. It seems almost a contradiction that we see so few BC wines here in Ontario when you consider the retail shelves most other countries are filled with wines from their own country’s wine regions, giving short shrift to most imported wine. One reason is the production of most BC wineries is relatively small, having no difficulty selling most, if not all their wines in BC—why bother to ship to Ontario?

Chris added, “The suggestion that has appeared in some media reports that consumers aren’t able to obtain wine from BC or other provinces is not true. The LCBO sold almost $7 million dollars worth of wines from other provinces through all of its channels in 2010. We have almost doubled the number of BC VQA wines we offer in the last two years and sales of these products have almost doubled over that period. Sales of wines from other provinces in Vintages are up about 60 per cent. Vintages has offered wines from B.C., Quebec, Newfoundland, PEI and Nova Scotia. As noted above, consumers are also able to obtain wines from other provinces via private orders in a relatively short time frame. The LCBO private ordering department brought into the Ontario market last year for Ontario consumers, more than 240 unique/different products from BC alone (mostly wines). We have also reached out to wine industry trade associations in other provinces, advising them that we are interested in carrying more of their wines and have encouraged wine producers in other provinces to submit products to us to be considered for purchase.”

Do you have a wine that you tasted at a winery in another province that evokes fond memories, or do you simply want wine from another province? You can order it by following this link to the LCBO ‘Private Ordering Department’.