Please #freemygrapes

Wine is back in the mainstream news this month all across Canada thanks to Bill C-311, a reform bill Vancouver lawyer and wine law specialist Mark Hicken describes as "a wine shipping law that will create a limited 'national personal use exemption' for shipping wine from province to province."

The private-member's bill, introduced by Okanagan-Coquihalla Conservative MP Dan Albas, received unanimous support on its third reading earlier this month and was passed by the Senate earlier this week.

Senate approval will finally shift the focus to where it needs to be: on provincial legislators. It's going to be interesting to see what the country's MLAs do with this important issue given they have left all alcohol decisions to their all-powerful monopolies for decades. I'm guessing the majority of MLAs have no idea how any wine gets into their province, let alone how it could possibly be shipped directly to my home in the future.

Let me help. It's what the voters want! Canadian wine producers, some 500-plus businesses from coast to coast, are seeking the right to allow their customers to buy wine from them and either transport it home "on their person" or have it shipped later to their residence anywhere in Canada.

They also want the right (and so do we) to sell wine to any Canadian through ecommerce. In this case the product would be ordered and paid for online, then shipped to the buyer's home, essentially what any other business in the country is allowed to do every day.

The monopolies are circling the wagons, suggesting they will allow Canadians to trans-port a small quantity of wine on their person each time we cross provincial boundaries but they are not endorsing any form of ecommerce or online ship-ping of wine at this point. Why would they? The next thing you know, we wouldn't need them.

The roadblocks begin with the definition of wine. Wine is not just Canadian, it is any wine made in the world. What is good for Canada is good for Italy not to mention Argentina, Australia, etc. and so any law that lets you transport wine across provincial borders must mean any wine.

Most people would assume shipping Canadian wine around the country is doable and no big deal. The monopolies, however, envision a different scenario. It likely involves oppressed B.C. wine buyers ordering much better-priced imported wine from Ontario or Alberta, where the tax is nearly 50-per-cent less in the former and a mere $2.60 a bottle in the latter.

Collecting the coveted tax is another obstacle. Both Alberta and Manitoba are on record as not wanting any direct shipping, sans tax, into their

jurisdictions and all the monopolies are claiming it would be a monumental task to figure out how and where the tax would be levied and how they could collect it. I say let FedEx figure it out: they do everything else and a lot more efficiently than any government.

Not to be deterred, Tinhorn Creek CEO and winemaker Sandra Oldfield has been leading the interprovincial wine-shipping battle on Twitter. The hashtag #freemygrapes is where the people are lobbying and the numbers are impressive. Last week, a cross-country chat on the subject of cross-border shipping generated 2,606,066 impressions, reaching an audience of 506,713 followers within 24 hours.

Since the end of December, #freemygrapes has garnered 18.6-million impressions and 11,246 mentions on Twitter, averaging 61 tweets per day. Those are numbers few politicians could dream of generating, let alone generate on any other bill they might consider important.

To speak to the absurdity of making wine in Canada but being unable to sell it to Canadians, Oldfield is in the pro-cess of obtaining a shotgun online from a Saskatchewan gun dealer. Apparently it is a breeze to legally buy and ship firearms across provincial boundaries. Once you complete an online Canadian Firearms Safety Course, you get a Pos-session and Acquisition License and voila, you are ready to go. FedEx ships the ammunition and Canada Post will ship the rifle. And there are no special taxes or markups on the sale.

The gun purchase is part of another test. Oldfield has friends legally ordering a case of her wine following the cumbersome interprovincial pro-cess most liquor monopolies employ, we think, to discourage such orders. It's an expensive, time-consuming process no normal wine buyer would consider unless, frankly, they had a gun to their head. Surely, provincial governments have far more important items to attend to than preventing Canadians living in one province the right to purchase wine from any other part of the country.

The sensible response to Bill C-311 is to instruct the monopolies to figure it out and get it done and #freemygrapes immediately. If you are still feeling the need to ban the interprovincial movement of goods, maybe guns should be your target.

All this discussion leaves no room to expand on this week's delicious picks. You can find ore information on all these wines online. You just can't buy them unless you live in British Columbia.

Stoneboat Vineyards Pinot Gris 2011, Oliver, Okanagan Valley

Price: $19

UPC: 626990058991

Score: 90/100

Remarks: Love the dry, stony, nectarine flavours and creamy textures. Try it with halibut.

Clos du Soleil Capella 2010, Keremeos, Similkameen Valley

Price: $25

UPC: 00627843047452

Score: 89/100

Remarks: Lemon, grapefruit, grassy overtones from the underrated Similkameen Valley.

Tinhorn Creek Pinot Gris 2011, Okanagan Valley

Price: $17

UPC: 624802981024

Score: 89/100

Remarks: The fruit mixes Black Sage Bench and Golden Mile Bench fruit. Fish tacos anyone?

Painted Rock Red Icon 2009, Skaha Bench, Okanagan Valley

Price: $55

UPC: 00626990105824

Score: 89/100

Remarks: Intense vanilla, cedar, smoke coffee, chocolate, resin, licorice flavours.

Burrowing Owl Athene 2009, Oliver, Okanagan Valley

Price: $35

UPC: 00688229008092

Score: 89/100

Remarks: Meaty, peppery, smoky oak, vanilla, coffee, cassis, olive, savoury, licorice flavours.

Baillie-Grohman Pinot Gris 2011, Creston

Price: $22

UPC: 626990100676

Score: 88/100

Remarks: A delicate, food-friendly and generally impressive Gris from a young site in Creston.

Read more: http://www.vancouversun.com/life/freemygrapes+immediately/6830543/story.html#ixzz1zKLYWyEh