Was curious about this myself so I did a little reading. It appears that BC only started allowing wine to be sold in grocery stores in 2015. It appears that until that time, wine was sold in a store within a store type situation. My grocery store has something similar without the trade protectionism, in that it has a state liquor store within the grocery store with a separate checkout. Wine and beer is sold on shelves within the store, while hard liquor and such is sold in the store within the store. BC sounds similar from reading, the distinction is that US wines can only be sold in the store within the store, while BC wines can be sold both on shelves and in the other.
That’s certainly unfair and protectionist, but I’m more curious as to what constitutes a grocery store in BC. Like, do small convenience stores have the ability to sell wine? I assume they don’t have the capacity to house a store within a store, thus completely shutting out foreign wine companies if they allow wine to be sold at all in such establishments. That strikes me as even a bigger deal if they allow wine to be sold at all in those type stores. We need a local for that.
I don’t know if we have any BC wine drinkers here so I figured I’d take a look at it.