Lieux Communs: Montreal's first urban winery

Local wine, cider and piquette makers discovering new terroirs out of their hybrid, urban, and nordic laboratory in Ahuntsic-Cartierville.

J.P. Karwacki

June 19, 2024- Read time: 8 min

Daniel Gillis, Laurent Noël, Guillaume Laliberté and Thibaud Gagnon of Lieux Communs. | Photograph: Courtesy Lieux Communs / Maude Chauvin, @maude_chauvin

“I really think that we're making wines of our generation.”

Daniel Gillis of Lieux Communs says this over a video call from their plot of land in Oka as he swats at mosquitos, dirt from vine caretaking smeared on his face and under his fingernails.

“If I had to be romantic about it in some ways, I'd say that, as people, we're a product of Montreal, and Montreal has a very unique situation in the wine world.”

Gillis, a working sommelier, is one of the four Montrealer proprietors of the city’s first urban winery alongside locals Thibaud Gagnon (an architect who heads all things design-related), Guillaume Laliberté (also a working sommelier) and Laurent Noël (a marine pilot on the Saint Lawrence).

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