independent wine sHOP IN CALGARY'S BELTLINE DISTRICT.
established 1996.
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.
There are still discoveries to be made and minds to be opened; we look forward to more decades of sharing honest and delicious wine with you.
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Alcohol, and therefore wine, is under attack from seemingly all sides. Most pertinently, categorical warnings issued by the World Health Organization and US Dietary Guidelines (the former based in part by “research” and support by Canadian neo-prohibitionists and the latter by the ICCPUD, a group tasked with the prevention of underage drinking) state that “no amount of alcohol is safe for human consumption”. That's quite an assertion.
After 28 years now, the “vineyard” of Metrovino is at a stage where even better things are to come. At fruitful moments, good things happen. The active partnership of Metrovino is expanding with the addition of Sarah Boucher and Eva Hudson as Metrovino’s newest partners.
We are honoured to have collaborated with some of Canada’s greatest culinary talent at Canada’s Best 100 10th Anniversary dinner series at River Café.
Nobody lacks self-discipline like us at Metrovino. We make valiant attempts at restraint, but you’d never know it given the fact that we import 80+ disparate German Riesling labels each vintage. Despite its amorphous parameters, every year we encounter phenomenal wines in our travels that don’t fit neatly into our bloated “portfolio”. When a brief encounter with such a wine makes clear that a future without it would be impoverished, empty and meaningless, we import said wine for reasons of emotion — regardless of its lack of glass-pour potential at restaurants or inherent appeal to trophy hunters.
This past April, winegrower Andreas Adam and I made a short drive to the village of Leiwen for dinner. Upon leaving the main road, I noticed a building alongside the Mosel river that conjured several memories for me. "Has that hotel and restaurant closed down?” I asked. After all, Andreas was the one who had recommended it to me so many years ago. He lamented that their doors were indeed permanently closed, and over dinner I recounted the following memory.
It seems that despite all of the constant and ubiquitous resources at our disposal for information gathering and communication, we live in a world of disconnection. I can easily know at any time what a celebrity is wearing, what another is promoting or despising. I can tell you the brand of underwear worn by a sports star (ooh-la-la), and a further endless stream of knowledge that provokes curiosity but remains mired in a tar pit of insignificance when it comes to existential questions.
Many of you will remember our former colleague, Marli Hadden, for her winning smile and infectiously positive demeanour. She left Metrovino in 2019 to chase dreams that were still unfolding, embarking upon a nomadic adventure that eventually landed her in Ontario's wine country. In ways it seems as if she just left yesterday, yet it also feels like a hundred years ago.
Who knew that Monastrell could be so elegant?!? And where the hell is Jumilla?!?
I first met the Cerdán brothers of Bodega Cerrón earlier this year at a massive wine fair in Barcelona where prominent wine journalists and sommeliers hovered around their booth like moths to a flame. It was clear that I wasn't about to discover anything under the radar, but I needed to see what the ruckus was all about.
The following transmission was sent to the Metro Mates from Jerez, Spain in February, 2024. Footnotes have been added so that the rest could be left intact.
Functioning on adrenaline and elation alone, I found myself aimlessly wandering the streets of Jerez de la Frontera one morning earlier this year. I was feeling rapturously jet lagged all over again despite the consistent time zone, having sacrificed an entire night of sleep in order to expedite my arrival to this magical place. I couldn't possibly have been happier.