A small winery on the northeast coast of Newfoundland is about to expand its production to ship thousands of cases of its products to China. "We've just signed a deal and we're pretty excited," confirmed Grant Young, the owner of Auk Island Winery in Twillingate.

Ontario will launch 10 pilot "LCBO Express" kiosks within grocery stores to make wine, beer and liquor purchases more convenient to customers,

June saw the passage of Bill C-311, an amendment to the 1928 Importation of Intoxicating Liquors Act that decriminalized interprovincial wine sales.

"We've just signed a deal and we're pretty excited," confirmed Grant Young, the owner of Auk Island Winery in Twillingate.

"MacLean feels comments about her posted to a U.S. website in December were so nasty that they have damaged her reputation and presented unnecessarily harsh personal descriptions of her. She is considering launching a lawsuit against some of her fellow wine writers in response."

An Ottawa wine writer used reviews from other writers on her website without properly crediting them. And as if that's not ripe enough, a U.S. online wine magazine says she requires some wineries to buy a subscription to her website before she'll review their wines.

Every wine lover across the world, for at least once, wants to visit the beautiful city of Niagara in order to taste one of the most delicious Ontario Ice Wine. Ice wine is brewed from the frozen grapes thus named as Ice Wine. To pamper the taste buds of wine lovers came here, proper Ice Wine Festival in Niagara is celebrated every year in the month of January.

Canadian wine critic Natalie MacLean has denied offering wine reviews in return for website subscriptions, but has promised to fully reference third-party reviews amid growing scrutiny of her practices.

Blue Moon Estate Winery has created a Comox Valley first: ice apple cider. Similar to ice wine, a sweet after-supper treat made from grapes frozen on the vine, ice cider is made from frozen freshly pressed apples. The result is a golden, sweet, spiced dessert wine that tastes intensely of apples.

The group has recently launched a fun education website on this topic, www.mywineshop.ca, where any interested adults can design their own wine retail space; from theme to name -- even the location where they'd open it -- the website gives John or Jane Q. Public the virtual power to make it happen.

It's meant to be an inviting way to uncork your dream wine store - while making a point the time has come for independent wine stores. In an innovative campaign that started mid-November, the Wine Council of Ontario is asking visitors to www.mywineshop.ca to create their own shops that sell domestic and import vintages.

The number of wineries planning to make ice wine in British Columbia this winter is up, but odds are in favor of lower overall production. British Columbia Wine Authority general manager Steve Berney told Wines & Vines this week that 30 wineries registered by the end of October to pick grapes for ice wine production, up slightly from 27 last year.

A Montreal wine collector is suing the Societe des Alcools du Quebec for nearly CA$1m after his collection was allegedly exposed to harmful bacteria. Robert Chiraz had been storing his 3,000-plus bottles since 2009 at a Quebec storage facility operated by Société des Alcools du Québec (SAQ).

Saskatchewan is in the process of getting three new, private, liquor stores, and a new ad from the SGEU says that's going to take money away from the government. The Saskatchewan Party government argues that this is not the case.

"Over the first nine months of 2012, Canadian consumers spent almost half a billion dollars more on alcohol than they did over the same period last year - an increase of 3.6 per cent," says BMO Capital Markets Economist Aaron Goertzen.

Annual alcohol sales in Canada are expected to top $19 billion this year, about 38 per cent or $700 million higher than in 2011, BMO economist Aaron Goertzen said.

The founders of Vancouver Urban Winery, a very cool multi-function space with tasting bar introduced a new idea to Vancouver earlier this year - importing good wines in bulk and packaging it locally. First, they packaged wines in kegs for a wine on tap trade they started.

Ontario's Progressive Conservatives admit they don't know if private alcohol sales would increase government revenues, but say the idea is worth looking at.

The founders of Vancouver Urban Winery, a cool multi-function space with a tasting bar introduced a new idea to Vancouver earlier this year - importing good wines in bulk and packaging them locally. First, they put wines in kegs for a wine-on-tap trade they started.

Lester and Echlin won the regional award, which recognizes excellence in agriculture, in June and went to the national week-long competition in P.E.I. last week.