Tasting Report: Province of Québec’s Wine Merchant

This report is dedicated to blind tastings I did in Montreal over four days in late November at the laboratory of the Société des alcools du Québec (SAQ), the province of Québec’s state-run wine and spirits distribution corporation. Many of the wines are available in other key markets of the world, which is why I linked the notes to Wine-Searcher. The majority are priced between $18 and $30 a bottle, so plenty of very good buys are available. I recommend that you buy them.

The SAQ has already published 55 of the notes on its website: www.saq.com. But another 79 are yet to be released on March 17. This means premium subscribers to my site are getting a heads-up on a lot of wines before anyone else, particularly in Canada. The wines listed below are all 90 points or more – outstanding wines that I want to buy myself.

The tastings were all done in my effort to get closer to the consumer experience as a wine critic. I contacted the SAQ, and I asked early last fall whether I could come on a regular basis and taste their top selections currently on the market. It said yes.

You’ve seen the tasting videos I have done in wine shops from Gary Vaynerchuk’s Wine Library in Springfield, N.Y., to Steve Wallace’s Wally’s Wine in Westwood, Calif. They are about tasting wines that viewers can immediately buy with my recommendations.

So, it makes sense to taste wines from the SAQ because it is arguably one of the biggest wine merchants in the world with about $1.9 billion in wine sales. In total, the SAQ sold about $2.5 billion in wine and spirits through its 413 shops last year.

As I wrote, the wines included in this tasting report were all tasted blind in late November on a trip to Montreal. I paid my travel expenses, including flights and accommodation. The SAQ simply provided the samples and a location for tasting. Nothing else was involved.

I really enjoyed doing the tasting. It was fun to taste so many outstanding wines from all over the world. I was impressed that I found 134 wines in total out of close to 200 that were outstanding in quality, 90 points or more.

It’s hard to generalize about the SAQ tasting due to the diversity of the wines. However, I liked the majority of the wines for their balance, freshness, and interesting fruit character. Few were over-extracted and overdone wines. This must be due to the European palates of the Quebecers; that’s the sort of wines they want to buy and drink. The Quebecer palate seems to coincide with mine after living in Europe for 26 years.

I have really enjoyed spending time in Montreal. The city reminds me of living in Paris in the mid-1980s. A wonderful wine and food vibe is there. It seems like every corner has a cool little restaurant offering good food and delicious wine. Quebecers obviously love their food and wine.

Below are the notes from the tasting.

Note: The ** indicate tasting notes that have not yet been published on the SAQ website.