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For years, Montréal’s menus flaunted gut-busting delicacies like reindeer sausage, buttered whelk, and duck fat poutine—a delicious legacy of hundreds of years of French colonial influence, a pioneering spirit, and freezing winter temps. Today, drinkers and diners in “the city of 100 steeples,” as Mark Twain called the city in its more pious days, have embraced the lighter
French-born Travel Channel host Isabelle Legeron first visited the port city almost a decade ago, she was “blown away” by the number of bars and shops selling natural wine. Legeron, who created the Raw Wine festival and was France’s first woman Master of Wine, credits the boom with the city’s historical focus on epicureanism. “The French connection is powerful, and natural wine has always been linked to gastronomy,” she says, noting natural wine often captures the imagination because it requires a bit of storytelling and passion. “Montréal is one of the most exciting places to visit when you’re a natural wine lover. It’s never hard to convince people to visit–especially the brewers.” As one of Québec’s most celebrated sommeliers, and owner of Soif Bar à Vin , Véronique Rivest believes the rise in natural wine has to do with the region’s open mindedness. “Québecers...are great food and wine lovers, and underlying this is a love of ‘convivialité—spending time around a table, eating, drinking, and talking,” she says, noting her favorite bar is Pullman , which many consider the first great natural wine bar in the city. Kim Urbain, head sommelier at the celebrated Foodlab — known for seasonal menus served in the Society for Arts and Technology’s cutting-edge headquarters—says natural wine is “fun, surprising, and full of colors,” like Montréal. As for why so many women are its driving force, Urbain admits she’s not sure. But, she notes, natural wine attracts “thinkers and revolutionaries, and, inevitably, women. We challenge the old ways of doing things in the wine industry and society. There is a real shift happening.”
side of Québécois fare. Chefs are pairing fresh produce with natural wine, resulting in a veritable wine bar boom. As a result, the still very French city on the St. Lawrence River has become the North American capital of natural wine. Many of the top players, from bar owners to importers, are women. They’re behind the scenes, often working together, creating a buzz so fierce that it’s increasingly rare for a new restaurant to open without natural wine on the menu.
Old World Influence Meets Québécois Flavors
The natural wine movement started in Paris as far back as the 1980s but really blossomed in the early aughts. Momentum has only increased. More an ethos rather than a strict set of guidelines, so-called “natural” winemaking favors organic farming techniques, lesser-known grapes, no added sugar, native yeasts, and other lower-intervention winemaking practices. According to Grand View research, organic wine, which can be considered under the natural umbrella, is set to grow 10.2% a year to become a $21.5 billion industry by 2030. Despite the culinary connection between France and Québec, it took a few years for Montréalers to catch on. So, when the UK-based,
SAN DIEGO MAGAZINE 119
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