It's Whining Time Again

OK hoseheads, listen up. If you didn't already know it, you're being "hosed" on wine prices in Canada. Fleeced, taken to the cleaners, gouged, ripped off. On our current USA epic, we've been discovering the joys of cheap wine that I didn't have to make myself. I know there's been a lot of talk about comparitive prices of books in Canada and the USA with the two dollars at near-par, but there's been no complaining about the prices of wine in Canada.

First, as all of you probably know, wine (and beer) in the USA is available in most stores. We've been buying our wine in whatever grocery store we've been using for our other food: WalMart, Safeway, Fred Myer, etc.... (I'm sure there's a good, victorian, reason for the way we do it in Canada, probably to reduce alcoholism or something....likely the same reason why the government and native groups have control over gaming - to prevent gambling addiction).

Second, we've been able to find lots of wine bring offered at some sort of sale price. I don't think that ever happens to wine prices in Canada. Hmmm - wonder why that is? Oh yeah, probably no competition?

So now we come to the prices we've been able to find. I've purchased 750 ml bottles of quite decent wine at prices as low as US$3. I don't think I've paid more than US$7 for anything. I've generally looked for whites like Gewurtziminer and reds like Merlots or Shiraz. A case in point would be Yellowtail Shiraz. In BC, this seems to sell for about C$12 or C$13. So far, I've paid about half that price for Yellowtail and there are many cheaper but good alternatives produced in Oregon or California that I've been sampling, quite happily.

My beef is why wine in Canada needs to be soooo expensive. What I'm going to try and do, if my wine-sodden brain can remember, is to.....ahhh....ummmm....where was that train of thought going???? Oh yes: to keep track of some prices of wines we find on our trip and compare them to prices back home. A completely unscientific study. So there will be more about this story coming later. Stay tuned.