“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).
Their project? A laboratory for wine, cider, and piquettes (‘simple’ wines, aka vinous beverages).
Operating out of a former textile factory space of La Centrale Agricole (the largest urban agriculture cooperative in Quebec) near the outdoor commercial centre Marché Central, they’ve been part of a boom in infamous urban projects growing and purchasing grapes to make highly desired bottles in everything from renovated garages and converted basements to abandoned restaurant spaces.
Apart from collaboration like a Hibiscus piquette with Zamalek or Reisling with snow crab at Wills? Hélicoptère, Candide, Vin Mon Lapin, Joe Beef, and slews of new restaurants with an eye on sporting ambitious wine lists—name a spot you like to drink a good glass, and Lieux Communs is likely there until sold out.
Photograph: Courtesy Lieux Communs / Mathieu Fortin, @mathieufortin
From nomads to a sturdy camp
As an urban winery, Lieux Communs makes urban wine: Following their nomadic and experimental years, their winery’s industrial permit allows them to make bottles on the island proper instead of on the land where the fruit is grown, as most vineyards have artisanal permits and are zoned agriculturally.
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