Vintage One Wines

I bought a voucher for one of the group buying sites. At 2 – 3 bottles it’s a steal! The quality of the wine is alright– not spectacular, but to be expected. The wine wasn’t necessarily even very good. The wine was, ok to good.
We bought three coupons and chose 3 different wines– I suggest doing this as a group and this way you get to enjoy a variety of wines plus just have a fun day out!
1) You make an appt to come in and you pick your wines. It is illegal to actually MAKE your own wine– what you do is you choose the wines off their menu and they call you a few months later to go and bottle it.
–We chose the bab, the pinot and the barolo (the cab was by far the best)
2) The activity of bottling is quite fun– note SAVE YOUR WINE BOTTLES– or pay the meager one dollar to buy a bottle from them.
3) The most fun and efficient way is to do assembly line-​Fordist style. Except of a proletarian wage you will be rewarded with WINE at the end! You clean the bottles, fill the bottles with wine, cork the bottle and put on the professional looking ribbon. This process is actually a lot of fun and rotate so you get to try each stage!
I have not bottled at a lot of places– although what makes this place great is the friendliness.
People here were just really friendly and lovely– I think Italian-​family owned and run.
This is a great place to make a large batch of wine for a party, wedding, or if you’re an everyday drinker :)
This won’t replace buying wine at the LCBO bc the quality just isn’t good enough to replace weekend wines or bottles you bring to dinner parties etc. But it has saved a LOT of money as a weekday wine, making Sangria or bringing to nice low-​brow backyard/​house parties.

Over the Christmas break, a friend and I decided to try our hand at wine making. Instead of giving chocolates, why not give some people wine? May they be co-​worker, friends or family, as we grow older wine just starts to seem more appropriate.
We decided on Vintage One Wines. They’re located on the west side of town and if you’re ttc’ing it definitely is kinda out of the way. So I do recommend driving as there’s a ton of parking on the back end of the store. Vintage One has a large store space and it’s located on the basement section of the building. It’s a little dark and grungy, but they are stacked to the brim with not just wine, but in expertise. We were able to talk to Alejandra De Miguel, who is young, smart and knows her wine. PS. she’s a good looking lady fellas, not sure if she’s taken tho. =P. There are many types of packages available for winemaking. This was our first time we wanted to try something nice and simple, so we went with a cortes chardonnay. What we really wanted to try was the Sparkling Torrontes, but that was little out of our budget.
Ordering is easy. You’re required to head there before hand to pick your wines, bottles, labels, etc. The wine took 6 weeks to prepare so make sure you plan ahead so you can have your wine in hand for your occasion. You can design your own labels so that’s a nice additonal customization that’s allowed. Once the wine is ready, you can customize almost everything. As mentioned, the cork, the seal, bottle, etc. You get the opportunity if you’re interested to fill your own order too. What that entails is filling the wine bottles, corking it, putting on the label and seal. So that was a nice experience.
Overall, I liked Vintage One Wines. The staff was super friendly and having the opportunity to speak to Alejandra helped us a lot in our experience. She’s very knowledgeable and her passion for wine is undeniable. The cost is pretty high, but if you have a large list of family, co-​workers etc, this is a good option as gifts. Or if you enjoy wine, why not make your own right? The wine was alright. It’s slightly above average, but would have loved to try the sparkling Torrontes. Maybe next time.