Now that we’re into our second week of being able to ship mixed cases, we’re adding a couple cases of top California icons. The fact that most of these wines are $100+ per bottle has often made trying them somewhat inaccessible to many customers available only in cases of 6. While these are still 6packs, we’ve mixed them up with 2 bottles each from some of California’s most iconic producers.

Just in time for Father’s Day, the LCBO finally eased their restrictions yesterday, announcing that as of June 15th we could legally start shipping mixed cases from consignment! This is one of the most significant changes to LCBO rules in decades, and while the new rules do not include restaurants, we’re ready to deliver some outstanding new options to all our consumers!

This is brand new, so how we go forward with this will be an evolving program, but for the moment we’ve put together 5 pre-mixed sampler packs to get things started, and will be offering some new options each week. Since this takes a bit more time and people-power to receive the cases, mix, and repack them into new boxes, plus include some nice tasting notes, we’re going to need an extra day to do the work. The the deadline to order for next Friday delivery is Tuesday June 16th at noon.

Here’s our first 5 mixed packs! Feel free to send me any questions you have about the wines, or if you’re looking for recommendations. No substitutions or single bottles, we’re just trying to streamline this exciting new process!

Technically it’s still spring, but the last few weeks have definitely felt like summer. And I’ve already featured some favourite whites, rosés, and big BBQ reds, so I think it’s time to look at some nice, easy-drinking, lighter reds for the summer weather. But “easy-drinking'“ and "“lighter” doesn’t have to mean simple or any less delicious. Sometimes people write-off or dismiss light bodied wines as inferior big full bodied wines, or equate value to bigger body. There is no correlation between body and quality, you can have extremely complex, flavourful wines that are so light red and transluscent in the glass they’re bordering rosé. In fact, the most expensive region for wine in the world in Burgundy and it’s entirely Pinot Noir, one of the lightest grapes! All that to say that light bodied wines are every bit as legit as full bodied wines. They can be so flavourful and versatile with all kinds of different cuisine and excellent to drink on their own. So whether you’re chilling out on the patio, having a nice dinner, or BBQ’ing something other than burgers and steaks, here’s some favourite bottles that won’t steer you wrong…

Orange and natural wine lovers rejoice! The much awaited pre-order for this year’s allotment is here!

Since last year’s release I’ve been getting texts, emails, and DM’s about when y’all can get more of the skin-contact Pinot Gris orange wine from BC’s burgeoning natural wine superstar, A Sunday in August. That time is now! But don’t hesitate, we need to have all your pre-orders in by Friday for a shipment to arrive in July…just in time for August!

Whether it’s on a t-shirt or a meme, that mantra rings true for so many. Rosé is the wine you can literally drink all day: on your lunch break on the back patio, filling your coffee mug on an afternoon dog walk, off camera in a wine glass on a zoom call, during happy hour after work, while cooking dinner, and of course pairing with dinner. Rosé always has you covered, and I mean always. For years I’ve always said that the two best wild cards in pairing wines are rosé and bubbles. Both go with almost everything and both are welcomed by everyone at any time of day or night.

And luckily great rosé is made all over the world. We have outstanding local rosés from right here in Ontario, or top imports from Southern France, or funky cool weird rosés from Austria, Chile and every other part of the world. Most rosés are made in the saignée method, where you’re bleeding off some of the pink juice in contact with the red skins, or by allowing only a few hours of skin contact on the juice so it does turn all the way red, just a bit pink, then fermenting. While some rosés are made with the addition of some white wine, most quality rosés are made in these other two ways. So because we had a nice 35 degree heat spike last week as a harbinger of warm weather to come, so this week we’re looking at a bunch of great rosés to help you get through the summer.

For years I’ve been threatening to get a tattoo that says “Chablis Is My Spirit Animal”. It may still happen one day. But because I’m such a fiend for minerality, Chablis is probably my overall favourite wine region. I keep trying to collect Chablis, but most of it gets drank! And at the moment I can’t imagine anyone in the country has a better lineup of Chablis available for home delivery. So this week I’m featuring a stable of superstars that range from affordable to baller, a nice cross-section of great producers and vineyards from across the region.

If you’re like many people stuck at home during the pandemic, missing your usual friends and outings, Netflix has likely become your go-to activity in quarantine. Sure, you may still go out for some social distance exercise or do an online yoga class, but let’s face it, with nowhere else to go, most of our free afternoons and evenings are in front of the TV. So this week’s features are geared towards the official activity of pandemic quarantine: Netflix and Wine.

Not specific to only Netflix, maybe you have Disney Plus, Prime Video, HBO’s Crave, or I suppose even regular cable (I haven’t had real TV in over 5 years). Either way, here’s some wines to pair with various scenarios on the couch as you watch through everything these streaming sites have to offer.

Now that spring is teasing us with some warm weather, Mother’s Day is this weekend, and last week we focused on Big BBQ Reds last week, I think it’s time to give the white wine world some love! Personally, I love awesome whites. But my cellar is mostly red, but not because I like red wine more, or because white wine can’t age as well (not true!) but because I drink all the whites!

This week I’m going to purposely steer clear of all the usual suspects like Sauvignon Blanc, Chardonnay, or Pinot Gris that everyone knows and loves and get a little off the beaten path and focus on some favourite white varietals or styles you may not be as familiar with. We won’t get too crazy or funky with it, just stepping a little outside of the box.

With last Saturday’s nice weather, we finally fired up the BBQ for a proper backyard cookout following a satisfying afternoon of yard work. And with more nice weather on the way in the coming weeks, I thought big BBQ wines should be the focus of this week’s Capital Wine features. I picked a range of styles and price points to hopefully find something for everyone’s BBQ needs. Feel free to reach out if you’d like more suggestions…we have lots of options!

I’ve been getting quite a few requests for natural wine the last few weeks, so this week we’re focusing on some of the best natural wine producers in the Lifford portfolio. These five wineries are all flag-bearers in the natural wine world. They all farm organically or biodynamically, ferment with wild yeast, have little to no fining, filtration, sulphites, or new oak on the wines. While their specific production methods may vary, they are all regarded as some of the best in the natural wine world and beyond.

Natural wine is a contentious, very complicated topic. Instead of explaining the ins-and-outs of organic, biodynamic, and natural wine here, I’ve written a blog post on Capital Wine that gives you an entry into this whole world. If you’re unfamiliar, click here to check that out first, then come back to this.

For this week’s theme I thought I’d go with something very green and environmentally friendly…a bit of a longer read this week, but I wanted to feature this whole group of unique wines together and they all have such a cool story!

The former owner of Lifford Wine & Spirits, Steven Campbell, has long been a dedicated environmentalist. Not just talking the talk, but also walking the walk. Aside from having been an early importer of sustainable, organic, and biodynamic wine decades ago, long before it was cool, he was making sure our company was green too. We’ve been Bullfrog Energy powered and certified Carbon Neutral since 2005 and we’ve planted over 90’000 trees through Tree Canada. Steven even partnered with a top winery back in 2008 to create a carbon neutral, sustainably produced wine, in PET recyclable plastic bottles. Needless to say the world wasn’t ready for that yet and the brand failed within a year. But that wasn’t going to be the end of it for Steven, he has been slowly perfecting that idea ever since. We work in a carbon heavy, shipping intensive industry, and Steven's philosophy has been to try mitigate our carbon footprint as much as possible and do our part towards fighting climate change. So this project has been a passion project in aligning his environmental philosophy with his business. In October of 2019 all his efforts were recognized when York University awarded him an honorary doctorate for his life’s work as an environmentalist and wine industry leader.

The #1 lesson he learned is that above all else, the wine has to be really good: people will happy support the green initiative so long as the wine is delicious! Fast forward to 2019 and Steven has partnered with a handful of top winemakers from countries all over the world who want to participate in the first entirely carbon neutral global wine brand. He's called it 'Campbell Kind Wines' and partnered with some of the world’s very best winemakers who produce either sustainable, organic, or biodynamic wine and he labels them accordingly in a “Kindness Category” on each back label (a cute touch!). And finally each wine is certified Carbon Neutral by Carbon Zero a carbon calculation and offset firm that has become an authority in the field. So every wine is accounted for from production to delivery as carbon neutral, as well as sustainable, organic or biodynamic. Now more importantly, let’s talk about the wine.Campbell Kind Wines will feature other top producers in the future, but the first vintage featured these super star winemakers: