



On February 28th, Alberta-based liquor licensees received a bulletin from Alberta Gaming Liquor and Cannabis (AGLC) informing us that as of April 1st, additional taxes will be applied to what they bizarrely refer to as “high end wine”. There was no prior consultation with importers, retailers and restaurateurs, nor did the bulletin announce why the egregious increases in taxes were being implemented.
If you’ve already issued a personal letter to the Honourable Dale Nally, Minister of Service Alberta and Red Tape Reduction, we appreciate it more than words can express. If you’ve yet to do so, we’ve now made it much easier as all you have to do is click “submit petition”, sign your name, and send off the email (which will include Premier Danielle Smith in carbon copy). You can see the content of the petition here.
After 28 years of business, we feel very privileged that we’ve been able to pay our bills all this time by selling wines that we love and believe in. We've never had to succumb to the financially attractive urge to offer prosaic wine or fill orders for the flavours of the week. Metrovino remains a retail embodiment of the unyielding love of wine, the yearning for the beautifully disparate places from whence it comes and the emphatic support of the indefatigable individuals who bring it to fruition. Most of our products aren't available anywhere else in the province, and many are exclusive to us in Canada.
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It's a reality of life. Assuming a lack of independent wealth, and unless one is willing to forfeit virtually all of the conventions of modern existence in the Western world, one must seek gainful employment. Since none of my innumerable passions doubled as opportunities to earn even the most basic living, this depressing fact daunted me for many years. It wasn't until I was in my mid-twenties that the disillusionment gave way to a glimmer of hope when a burgeoning interest of mine seemed to coincide with an accessible “industry”.