The SAQ has announced that they will be increasing the retail prices of over 800 products at shops across Quebec. This news has conveniently come right around the holiday period, when we all plan on drinking the most. Although the price increases are not terribly drastic, considering the already steep prices we pay for alcohol in Quebec, it's still a significant change.

Join us at one of Canada's best new restaurants of 2018 to highlight the joys of pairing both wine and beer with a delicious 4-course menu. Created and prepared by JC Poirier, Chef/Owner of St. Lawrence Restaurant, and Neil Taylor, Executive Chef of Home Block Restaurant at CedarCreek. Each course will be expertly paired with CedarCreek's Single Block Platinum wines chosen by winemaker Taylor Whelan. They'll go head-to-head with Strange Fellows craft beers selected by brewmaster Iain Hill.

Joe Pantoliano will star in the whimsical Italian vineyard drama From the Vine Came the Grape, directed by Sean Cisterna (Kiss and Cry, Full Out). Pantoliano, best known for his star turns on HBO's The Sopranos and in the film Memento, plays a downtrodden corporate executive who suffers a crisis of ethics, retreats to his family's hometown in southern Italy and discovers a vineyard on its last legs.

B.C. wine fans take note, the B.C. Wine Institute is inviting consumers to "Search Near Not Far" and explore the unique differences coming from our defined wine-growing regions. The campaign invites consumers to explore the character within each B.C. wine region and to learn about the Okanagan Valley, Similkameen Valley, Fraser Valley, Vancouver Island, Gulf Islands and the four new regions of Thompson Valley, Kootenays, Lillooet and the Shuswap.

The prominent Vancouver, B.C., family that owns the Canucks hockey franchise is preparing to build a major wine production facility and tasting room near Benton City. Aquilini Red Mountain Vineyards, a holding of Aquilini Investment Group, will build a 170,000-square-foot wine production facility, tasting room and a home for the owners at its property in the Red Mountain American Viticultural Area, according to plans submitted to Benton County.

Tourists to Canada's Okanagan Valley can thank the glaciers for carving the wonderful views in southern British Columbia, but local growers look to the future by growing new varieties and crops on the fertile benches the glaciers left behind. On the first day of the 2018 International Fruit Tree Association study tour in July, Carl Withler, an industry specialist for the Canadian Ministry of Agriculture, summed up what we'd learn over the next couple of days: B.C. growers are facing change head-on.

Meads have been around for a long time, but there hadn't been a craft meadery in Saskatchewan until Prairie Bee Meadery opened in June 2016. The province has always been a leading producer of honey, which is combined with water to make mead - a liqueur also known as honey wine. There's been several variations of mead produced by Saskatchewan breweries over the years, but never a dedicated meadery.

Consumers in Vancouver can now have booze delivered to their door with the arrival of an app-based service that includes age-verification software. The Boston-based Drizly website and mobile app promises to deliver consumers beer, wine and spirits from select Liquor Depot locations in under 60 minutes. The company first partnered with Canadian retailers in 2016 when it launched for the Alcanna-owned Liquor Depot and Liquor Barn stores in Edmonton.

U.S. President Donald Trump is partly right but far from completely correct when he says that France's "big tariffs" make it hard for American vintners to sell their wines here: Wrong because customs duties on imported wines are applied not by France but by the European Union. Right because American tariffs are "globally" less than what Europe charges, the French customs authority says.

The Somm360 Congress releases its full program between Nov. 25-27, 2018, at Le Grand Quai in Montreal's Old Port. The inauguration event will present a 3-day educational trade conference, offering a series of exclusive masterclasses, tastings, and training sessions.