Wine and the City in Montreal
An Albariño and a Brouilly, amid the charms of Montreal in March
Though Toronto is often cited as Canada’s answer to Manhattan, with its dizzying skyscrapers, bustling financial district, and subway system that doubles as a de facto refuge for homeless drug addicts, I have always regarded Montreal as the truer spiritual sister to the Big Apple. What it lacks in hundred-story glass towers, it more than compensates for with beautiful old Art Deco architecture and a sundry food scene boasting bagels and smoked meat that more than rival their New York counterparts.
But for an Torontonian, the other great allure of Montreal, and Quebec more broadly, is the SAQ (Société des alcools du Québec). For the uninitiated, Canada prides itself on being a liberal, chic, and progressive haven, yet in most of the country alcohol remains regulated by government monopolies so centralized they would make Yuri Andropov weep.
The LCBO (Liquor Control Board of Ontario) may be the larger buyer, but there is enough daylight between the respective monopolies that shopping at one rather than the other can still yield discoveries from new producers, unfamiliar labels, and styles less commonly encountered back home. On this trip, two such bottles from the SAQ proved especially rewarding: a crisp Albariño from Spain’s Rías Baixas and a powerful Brouilly Cru Beaujolais from France.
Agro de Bazan Albariño Rías Baixas Granbazán Etiqueta Ambar
Hailing from Bodegas Granbazán, also known as Agro de Bazán, this wine comes from Val do Salnés. The oldest and most coastal subregion of Rías Baixas, this Atlantic-influenced area is defined by its moderate maritime climate and is known for wines of high acidity and distinct saline character.
In the glass, the wine shows medium lemon. On the nose, it is youthful and medium+ in intensity, offering a fruit profile centered on citrus — lime, lemon, and grapefruit — with a distinct touch of orange peel alongside tree fruits such as apple and pear. These are complemented by flourishes of white blossom and the variety’s signature saline note. The wine is further framed by subtle secondary hints of cream and butter, derived from eight months of lees aging (not the norm for Rías Baixas, but a practice winemakers occasionally employ to add texture and complexity to their wines).
On the palate, it is characteristically dry with bracing, high acidity. It possesses medium body and medium alcohol, with medium+ flavour intensity and a medium+ finish. The palate mirrors the nose while adding an extra layer of stone fruit, particularly apricot, along with a fresh herbal edge. The overall impression is of a wine shaped by both high-quality fruit and intelligent winemaking.
If that was not already obvious, this is a very good wine; it is delicious on its own, but also a highly versatile food partner. Its high acidity makes it an especially natural companion to rich or fatty foods—chips or crips as appetizers are a perfect complement.
Domaine Les Garçons Brouilly 2022
The next bottle was a Cru Beaujolais from Brouilly in Burgundy, made from Gamay. If you have read Alexandre Dumas’ Three Musketeers novels, Beaujolais was always the wine of the people, while the more austere and lustrous wines of Burgundy were reserved for nobles. But despite its humbler place in the hierarchy, Gamay, when properly handled by a capable winemaker, can contend with the best of them—the pompous Cardinal Richelieu didn’t know what he was missing.
As a grape, Gamay is notoriously vigorous. Left untended, vines can produce such an excess of leaves and shoots that they begin to resemble a hoarder’s basement rather than a neat and trim French vineyard, ultimately diluting flavour concentration and diminishing quality. One of the most effective correctives is soil, particularly granite. Granite is restrictive and low in fertility, forcing vines to struggle, drive roots deeper, and channel their energy into fruit rather than superfluous foliage. The result is lower yields, but higher-quality grapes.
Beaujolais also has one of the simpler classification systems among France’s AOCs (Appellation d’origine contrôlée). There are three tiers: Beaujolais AOC, Beaujolais-Villages AOC, and Cru Beaujolais. The latter comprises ten designated villages whose names may appear on the label, signaling the region’s highest quality level. These sites also tend to contain Beaujolais’ deepest deposits of granite.
One such cru is Brouilly, and the bottle I uncorked in Montreal came from Domaine Les Garçons. In the glass, the wine showed medium ruby. The nose was anything but shy, with a spry medium+ intensity and an intoxicating amalgam of red fruits ranging from cranberry and raspberry to red cherry. At four years of age, the wine was also beginning to show the first signs of development, with hints of wet leaves and forest floor.
On the palate, the winemakers’ talents revealed themselves in a triumphant balancing act between mouth-puckering high acidity and, somewhat surprisingly for Gamay, high tannin to match. It is a testament to the grape’s versatility that it can present with such structure and maintain its charm. There was also clear (and appropriate) use of French oak, lending notes of baking spice, chocolate, and cedar. A generous finish sealed the impression of a very good, perhaps even outstanding, wine, especially at the remarkably modest price of $30 CAD.
I could happily drink this on its own, preferably by the case, but I also found it an excellent companion to a falafel pita from Yoni, a local Israeli spot in Montreal.