Common places: city wine

The nomadic and experimental years of the wine (and now cider and piquette) Lieux Communs label have paid off. After four harvests, the quartet of winegrowers took root a little more, with vines in Oka then an urban cellar, the first in Montreal. We visited him in a room near the Central Market.

Eve Dumas
The Press

The last two years have been very, very busy for Guillaume Laliberté, Daniel Gillis, Thibaud Gagnon and Laurent Noël. In 2021, in addition to their respective occupations as sommeliers, architect and maritime pilot, they rented an exceptional piece of land in Oka, property of Hugo Grenon, Polisson ciders, they planted their first vines, rented a space commercial rue Legendre, transformed it into a winery, harvested the grapes, matured their wines, experimented with apples, etc.

“And if you drink 2020 from Common Places, know that Dan slept in the U-Haul truck rented to move the vats and the grapes, that Laurent, after driving a boat on the St. Lawrence Seaway, only slept not, but rather went to press grapes, that Thibault was doing his master’s degree in architecture at the same time as the harvest and that I fell asleep at the wheel after 36 hours without sleeping, says Guillaume. We can say that 2020 and 2021 scared us, hurt us, but after these vintages, we really felt capable! »

The experimental years were also those of… brown juices! When the must is not “protected” with sulphur, it oxidizes on contact with air and turns brown. “The first time we saw that, we panicked,” said Daniel Gillis. It is the only wine that we have sulphured in our whole life! Today, we know that it will correct itself with fermentation, even as the oxidation of musts, it protects the wine and it has a very interesting effect on acid grape varieties. Since then, we brown our wines on purpose! »

What fruit

Basically, the philosophy that has underpinned the projects of Lieux commun since the beginning, finalist for the Lauriers this year in the category Brewer, winemaker or beverage producer of the year, has always been the same, of a disarming and paradoxical simplicity. . “We heard that if you squeeze grapes, take the juice, put nothing in it and wait a bit, it will give something fun”, sums up one of the four founders of Lieux common in episode 12 of the podcast Harvest by the glassaired last March.

Until their own vines produce good fruit in a few years, Lieux commun continues to work by negotiating, that is to say by buying its raw material from other winegrowers and, now, apple growers, then by transforming it to his liking, with as few interventions as possible.

Unknown trading

Unlike France and even the American West Coast, Quebec does not have a legislative framework to govern this activity. When they used the facilities of the Domaine du Grand Saint-Charles and the Château de Cartes, the young winegrowers benefited from the permits of the latter. With a winery in town — rather than on the land where the fruit is grown — Lieux communs had to take out an industrial, rather than an artisanal permit.

This category of license comes with its pros and cons. In the “benefits” category, there is the possibility of buying grapes from the neighboring province, such as the good Ontario Riesling that we had the opportunity to taste on barrel during our visit.

As for the disadvantages, note the impossibility of selling directly to grocery stores. Thus, the next Lieux commun wines will be distributed “ip” (read: in restaurants), through the agency that the winegrowers had to found to represent themselves. It will therefore be necessary to drink them, starting in the fall, in good friendly addresses such as Denise, Hélicoptère, Mon Lapin, vin vin vin, Candide, Paloma, Supernat, etc., or buy them from new Quebec “wine merchants”. Apple products can be sold in grocery stores. We also bought several bottles of thirst-quenching Mélisse cider this spring, a perfect aperitif companion.

More “serious” wines and UFOs

Now that the quartet is unleashing its madness with its ciders and its piquettes, it is taking the wines in a slightly more serious, more cerebral, more classic direction for the table. The breedings will lengthen, with a marketing one year after the vintage, at least, and some cuvées will perpetuate.

“We are coming out of our laboratory period. In 2020, we made 12 wines and a cider. We may have lost some people. There, we want to fix certain cuvées, ”explains Guillaume Laliberté.

Envol, for example, is a frizzante of red varietals with some white that should return year after year. The upright single varietals of Frontenac Blanc and Frontenac Gris also.

While waiting for the wines, you can taste two delicious UFOs, on sale in several specialized shops, such as Pascal le boucher, Butterblume, Veux-tu une beer, Comptoir Sainte-Cécile and Fromagerie Edel Weisz. Debuts is a cider on Riesling lees, while Reflets is a maceration of apples in Sainte-Croix grape juice, with the addition of Vidal piquette, all flavored with marigold. wow! Good tasting !