Ghyslain* is mad about wine. He adores prestigious French houses, has a penchant for Burgundy. Listening to him speak, we quickly understand that his passion has turned into an obsession.
For the past ten years, he has been collecting hundreds of grands crus. He has millions of Inspire Points. He is part of this select group of great connoisseurs of the Société des alcools du Québec (SAQ), where customers who spend at least $25,000 annually are entitled to personalized services and have access to premium products.
He easily spends 10 times the minimum threshold to join the party. Money is no obstacle to getting your hands on a coveted grand cru. However, for several years, he has been dissatisfied with the SAQ’s VIP service.
The reason ?
He sees bottles slipping past him, because they are, according to him, offered to more prestigious customers or through the SAQ lottery, where he does not always have a lucky hand. ” It bothers me ! “, he admits.
He is less interested in resale, more in possession. For the past four or five years, he has therefore turned to illegal sites, where speculation is king and raises the stakes.
Ghyslain, who is therefore not really called Ghyslain, received La Presse at his home, where he opened his computer to present his modus operandi to us.
If he uses the adjective “alternative”, this wine lover is well aware that this type of activity is illegal.
Restaurateurs also sometimes turn to black market sales in order to be able to offer large bottles to increasingly demanding customers.
Ghyslain is active on several resale sites, under different names. He also buys through an agent who is in Alberta and who gets his hands on great vintages for his numerous Quebec customers. In this province, it is not illegal to order and have wines delivered directly to your home from abroad.
The bottles are then sent by delivery service, completely illegally. However, in Quebec, members who are part of these largely male networks sometimes deliver or take part of the bottle journey to avoid going through the mail or a traditional delivery service. Several know each other and fraternize, because they meet on different sites.
The route of these bottles remains nebulous. Sometimes it involves the resale of wine legally acquired at the SAQ. Ghyslain buys everything he can there, even what he doesn’t want, because the bottles can then be coveted for an exchange. In doing so, he deprives the connoisseur who really wanted the wine in question. Often, the path of cuvées that end up on illegal sites is more winding, even dubious.
To be part of these groups, a newcomer must be sponsored by an active member, in order to avoid infiltration by the police or journalists.
According to our collector, the Royal Canadian Mounted Police (RCMP) has shut down three illegal resale sites over the past year. The RCMP, affected by the labor dispute among federal employees, could not confirm this information. No charges were brought against the users, who open a new version of their site as soon as the previous one is closed by the police.
In order not to arouse the interest of RCMP officers, codes are inserted into the offers of online transactions. There are never any dollar signs in the bottle descriptions, instead emoticons are used. Special characters are inserted into the names of rare wines and scotches so that law enforcement cannot find the site with a keyword search.
Illegals have developed ways to cover their tracks.
“When we obtain information about the sale of alcohol online, an investigation is initiated, the subjects are arrested and the files are submitted to the Director of Criminal and Penal Prosecutions”, specifies the Police Department of the City of Montreal. In the past year, 13 offenders involved in selling alcoholic beverages without a license have been charged under the Liquor Offenses Act.
Some exchange sites and places are less sophisticated than others – and easier to spot. In Quebec, the Facebook group Juicy Transactions allows beer, whiskey and wine lovers to exchange bottles, which is also illegal. It was founded in 2021 by an employee of the SAQ who, joined by La Presse, assured that he believed that the exchange was allowed on this kind of platform.
The purpose of the site, he says, is to allow people to get their hands on bottles that are otherwise difficult to obtain or to be able to sell wines purchased at the box, as private imports. We are more here in natural and Quebec wine. If the rules of the game specify that the site wants to make exchanges, some members do not hesitate to offer wine for sale.
In Quebec, all trade in alcoholic beverages goes through the SAQ, which also oversees auctions or cellar sales. The monopoly gets a commission each time. Any sale between individuals, not declared, is prohibited. This has never prevented friends from making transactions between them, in a confidential manner. Collectors are also finding ways to get their hands on rare bottles; the phenomenon is well known in the community.
The proliferation of networks that allow online sales is a more recent phenomenon. And more risky.
According to Ghyslain, the Crown corporation is aware of the existence of these sites, which Linda Bouchard, spokesperson for the SAQ, indeed confirmed.
The Régie des alcools, des courses et des jeux (RACJ), for its part, was not aware of the existence of these sites. “You teach me that,” admitted his spokesperson, Me Joyce Tremblay. According to her, the Régie has no “enabling power”. Even when it comes to restaurateurs? “If it concerns our incumbents, the police need to bring us an occurrence report. »
Police actions in this area remain exceptional. In November 2022, the Longueuil agglomeration police department arrested a man in Beloeil. He had in his possession 350 bottles of whiskey with a total value of $80,000 to $100,000. The Longueuil police say they sent the file to the Director of Criminal and Penal Prosecutions (DPCP) last week. The man is likely to face justice for reselling illegal alcohol, among other things.
Bottles of this value are not sold under the coat in a Beloeil park: they are intended for connoisseurs accustomed to paying hundreds of dollars for a collector’s bottle.
Jean-Philippe Borquez is a director of Whiskey Enthusiasts, which brings together more than 700 enthusiasts. He is familiar with parallel networks. According to him, there are about ten resale and exchange sites in Quebec just for whiskey. Fans can trade bottles there, sell them or even offer them in the lottery or according to a poker, which doubles the offense, because it is also illegal gambling.
The lifespan of these groups is variable, some are ephemeral. In the aftermath of the Longueuil police seizure last fall, some sites closed, others lost members.
Jean-Philippe Borquez believes that the SAQ does not adequately serve whiskey connoisseurs. “I really have the impression that we are not high in the priorities of the SAQ. It raises the frustration. So people turn to other networks. »
Longueuil police also got their hands on the arrested man’s client list, but there are still no charges filed against anyone else related to the case.
The sale and concealment of prestigious alcohol are economic crimes. The police have higher priorities on their lists than prosecuting collectors who spend fortunes completing their Romanée-Conti verticals or chasing their numbered batches of Scotch whisky.
Because that’s what it’s all about: collectors for whom the search for the missing bottle can turn into an obsession, which leads them to turn to the black market.
With the real possibility of getting pinned down.
Dividends remitted to the Government of Quebec by the SAQ for the 2021-2022 fiscal year. An increase of 10.7% compared to the previous year.
SAQ sales for the 2021-2022 fiscal year. That’s $196 million over forecast.
The SAQ offers everyday products, available everywhere in Quebec, but also manages to get its hands on alcohol whose quantities are limited. In this case, it offers them in a lottery, open to all on its website. The number of lotteries has increased from three to five per year, then to ten now. Wherever you are in Quebec, whoever you are, you can bet on a bottle of Burgundy or a Scotch whisky. If you’re lucky, you win the right to buy it. Some items are highly prized, and many enthusiasts bet multiple times on a product – by asking buddies to do it for them, with their SAQ ID, or by creating multiple accounts themselves. The practice is well known in the industry. Restaurateurs also ask their employees to bet to obtain coveted vintages that they can add to their menu, for their connoisseur customers. Last year, around 175,000 bottles were awarded by lottery.
While the SAQ has to come in for a lot of criticism, there is generally consensus on one point: its selection is vast and the prices are fair, especially for rare vintages. Which can make aficionados just across the border salivate: Americans sometimes pay a lot more for the same bottle, especially if it’s rare. This does not prevent speculation in Quebec. An amateur who gets his hands on a pinot noir from Burgundy in the lottery (crus that are becoming scarce on the market) can very well resell it on an illegal site, at a high profit, or else legally at an auction.
The resale of alcohol is very regulated in Quebec. Legal resale is done there mainly through auctions – Iegor – Hôtel des encans has a tradition of selling wines, sometimes very prestigious vintages. In this case, the seller pays 20% commission, half goes to Iegor, the other half to the SAQ. If a lucky person wins a nice bottle in the lottery, pays $500 for it and resells it at auction for double that, the SAQ will receive $100 for the second transaction of a bottle that it has already sold for the first time – that’s it. either the previous month or a few years ago. Other channels are allowed for the resale of alcohol: the cellar management company Alfred, a Quebec company, allows its members to sell and buy bottles. The SAQ collects control fees equivalent to 2.5% of the value of the sale. The Crown corporation validates the sale once it is made.
The SAQ is very discreet about the services offered to these collectors who spend at least $25,000 annually on wine – often much more. These wine lovers have access to certain products before the general population and can participate in trips or evenings with winegrowers, on promise of purchase. This select club has around 400 members who also sometimes have access to bottles from the monopoly’s aging cellar. Two SAQ advisors are entirely assigned to them, Stéphane Leroux and Ghislain Caron.
The SAQ has a cellar of beautiful bottles that is called in different ways, but which is generally referred to as the aging cellar. The state-owned company retains the right to choose prestigious and rare bottles from the import agencies it works with, before offering them in lottery or in its network. What is in this mysterious cave? Impossible to know, since the SAQ refused to provide La Presse with the list of products found there. The spokeswoman for the state-owned company, however, told us that there were Château Lafite, Château Cheval Blanc and Petrus, without specifying the cuvées, vintages or number of bottles in stock.
It is not just the popular wines from the Domaine de la Romanée-Conti that appear on resale sites. Quebec bottles are also traded on this parallel market. The producers concerned dare to believe that this is an isolated phenomenon.
“I can’t believe people are so crazy about bottles of fermented grapes,” laughs Véronique Hupin, co-owner of Les Pervenches vineyard in Farnham.
Its bottles, like those of Domaine du Nival, Pinard et Filles and Joy Hill, ended up on Juicy Transactions, a Facebook group for swapping and buying alcohol. Unaware of the existence of this site before the call from La Presse, the winemaker had however heard a few years ago that her wines were circulating on parallel networks.
She’s even been told that her bottles are on the shelves of a deli that…she’s never sold any to. How did they end up there?
“I always thought it was isolated cases,” she admits. We never took the time to follow up or see with our own eyes what people were telling us. »
“I can’t believe these are large volumes. I know where all my wines go,” adds the one who produces 28,000 bottles annually. The winemaker assures that she knows her customers and that she has already shaken hands with them all at least once, since most come to the vineyard to pick up their cases.
In Saint-Louis, at Domaine du Nival, Matthieu Beauchemin has already seen his bottles passed through exchange sites, but like Véronique Hupin, he has the impression, at least in the case of Quebec wines, that the phenomenon is not very large.
“We know it’s done in wine. Not so much with our wines. There is no one who would kill for a bottle of Nival,” he asserts.
“There are people who buy from us in boxes and who share it with friends, illustrates the producer. It’s always happened. »
Is he comfortable with the idea of people making money off his bottles? “There are things I let go of in life,” he replies after a few seconds of thinking. Obviously, we don’t embrace that. We don’t want that. But all in all, we have quite a bit of control. »
And in the end, it is the customers who buy on these sites who are the big losers, argue the two wine producers. “At the end of the day, it is the consumer who pays more. We do everything to keep our costs as low as possible,” says Véronique Hupin.
“If a person pays $150-200 for one of our bottles, afterwards, they may be disappointed, because it’s not worth it,” says Matthieu Beauchemin.
