Montreal: The Round-Up

It was back in 2007 when the legendary wine importer Joe Dressner said to me, “To hell with New York. Montreal is the natural wine capital of North America.” I didn’t get around to seeing it for myself until this year around Halloween, when I drove up to Canada with the La Garagistas for tastings, presentations and good drinking. Between the Joe Beef empire, all of its satellites and even a Syrian restaurant that supposedly has one of the deepest and most inexpensive natural wine lists going, it didn’t take long to realize that what was correct in 2007 was even more so in 2017. One could easily go on a bar á vin naturel expedition and not even miss the scene in Paris. Almost.