Rod Phillips
Is an Ottawa-based wine writer and wine historian, and a professor of history at Carleton University. His books include A Short History of Wine (2000), Ontario Wine Country (2006), Alcohol: A History (2014), and French Wine: A History (2016). He writes wine features for NUVO Magazine and Vines Magazine, has contributed to The World of Fine Wine and GuildSomm.com, and publishes articles and wine reviews on rodphillipsonwine.com.

How Were the Wines in this Guide Selected?
Are These Wines
Available Everywhere?
How to Read This Guide
Detailed Explanations

WHITE WINES
Argentina
Australia
Canada
   British Columbia
   Nova Scotia
   Ontario
Chile
France
Germany
Greece
Hungary
Italy
New Zealand
South Africa
Spain
USA
   California
   Washington

RED WINES
Argentina
Australia
Canada
   British Columbia
   Ontario
Chile
Croatia
France
Germany
Greece
Italy
New Zealand
Portugal
South Africa
Spain
USA
   California
   Washington

ROSÉ WINES
Argentina
Canada
   British Columbia
   Ontario
Chile
France
New Zealand
Spain
United States
   California

SPARKLING WINES
Argentina
Australia
Canada
   Nova Scotia
   Ontario
Chile
France
   Champagne
   Sparkling Wines
Hungary
Italy
Luxembourg
New Zealand
Spain

SWEET WINES
Canada
   Ontario
Italy
United States
   California

FRUIT WINES
Canada

FORTIFIED WINES
Port
Sherry

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

This is the first wine guide written specifically for Canadians, no matter where in Canada they live. Unlike wine guides that focus on the wines available in one of Canada's provinces, this is a guide to quality and good-to-great-value wines that are widely available across the country. It includes wines of three colours—red, rosé, and white—and all styles, including still and sparkling wines, wines that are dry, off-dry, and sweet, and fortified wines such as sherry and port. If you drink wine, you'll find many wines here that suit your palate and are perfect for the occasion you're buying wine for.
      I've been tasting thousands of wines each year for decades. There are great wines, excellent wines, very good and good wines, and also wines that are mediocre and poor—not to mention some that should never be on any market at any price. While preparing this guide, I tasted many more wines than I included, and I selected those that I believe offer quality and value for the price.
      Speaking of price: the cost of a bottle of wine is not necessarily a good guide to its quality. There are some really excellent wines under $12 and some not-so-good wines that cost a lot more than that. I haven't discriminated by price, and you'll find many wines here that are really inexpensive and good quality, as well as many in the higher price brackets.
      Nor have I discriminated by producer. There's a tendency in the wine world to look down on wines made for the mass market—wines made in the hundreds of thousands or millions of bottles—as if they couldn't possibly be as good as wine produced by winemakers making a few thousand cases of wine a year. But many of the big producers—whether they're in France, Italy, California, Argentina, Chile, or elsewhere—make excellent wines year after year. In this guide you find wines from these producers alongside wines made by mid-sized and small producers.
      I'm happy to have feedback on the wines in this guide and suggestions of wines I should think of for the next edition. You can e-mail me at rodphillips@worldsofwine.com

Cheers!

Rod Phillips

HOW WERE THE WINES IN THIS GUIDE SELECTED?

For ten years I wrote the annual 500 Best-Value Wines in the LCBO, which was a guide to the best-value wines in Ontario's provincial liquor system. Each spring I asked wine agencies and wineries to send me samples of the wines they wanted considered for inclusion in the guide. I did the same for the present guide, the one you have in your hands, and I received more than a thousand wines to consider.
     I tasted all the wines systematically, all at the proper temperature: the reds cool, the whites and sparkling wines chilled. As I tasted, I made notes and triaged the wines: wines that would definitely make the cut, wines that might be in the guide, and wines that would definitely not make it. Unlike my guide to wines in the LCBO, which included 500 wines each year, I aimed for no particular number for this guide. If there were 200, fine. If there were 800, fine. As it turned out, there are 500.
     I made no distinction in terms of style, and this guide is certainly not simply a list of the wines I like to drink. It's true that I like most of them, but there are some styles I'm not so keen on, such as very sweet wines and the sweeter red wines that have become quite popular. But a wine guide is not about personal preference, and I applied the same criteria to all the wines that I tasted: balance and quality.
     Most wine professionals agree that balance is essential in wine, meaning that there should be a balance among all the components: fruit, acid, and alcohol, and (where appropriate) sugar and tannins. That means that when I taste sweet wines, such as icewines, I look not only for sweetness, but for the appropriate level of acidity and fruit flavour. Sweetness alone is not enough. When I taste dry wines, I look not only for good acidity, but evident fruit flavours. When I tasted big, robust, red wines, I look not only at their concentrated fruit flavours but also for the right level of acidity and structure that is needed to make them drinkable and go well with food.
     The wines in this guide are balanced for the styles of wine they represent. Very sweet wines in this guide have good fruit and acidity. High-acid wines (such as some rieslings) have enough fruit to balance the acidity. The wines here do not smell or taste of alcohol, even if they have a high alcohol level. Fruit-driven wines have enough acidity to keep them fresh.