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Great Wine at Great Prices

Good selection means getting the right wine for you
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With more than 70 wines kits to choose from, there’s a great selection at Nanaimo’s Wine Kitz Metral Place, but they’re also known for their knowledge and customer service.

With more than 70 types of wine to choose from, loyalty cards and satisfaction guaranteed, it is no wonder Nanaimo News Bulletin’s readers have voted Wine Kitz Metral Place the Best in City wine-making store for 12 years.

With May, director of Wine Kitz Metral Place, leading her team, they all agree that the reason they get voted No. 1 is customer service.

“We’re here to help our customers as much as we can,” May says. “We’re here to share knowledge and advice on wine.”

There is a limit to how much the store can do without being labeled a producer, though. What it can do is help people select the wine that’s right for them, then help them start the process by mixing up the ingredients.

“They have to be in the store to add the yeast into the grape juice,” May says.

“Then we take care of it until they come in to bottle their wine,” May says. “So we take care of all the fermentation, and making sure the wine gets cleared and filtered so it’s ready for them to come in, bottle it, take it home and enjoy.”

With more than 70 wines to choose from, there’s a great selection of wine kits, from something for the budget conscious, like European Select, to some very high-quality kits that include grape skins for the fermenting process, May says.

There are reds, whites, rosés and even ice wines and port. They range from light- to full-bodied, dry to sweet, and they come from the world’s best wine regions including Australia, Argentina, Chile, Italy and France.

The store will also help customers make fresh fruit wine. The customer would need to bring in about 30 pounds or more of soft fruit such as strawberries, raspberries, blueberries, plum or peaches. And Wine Kitz Metral Place can, with the customer’s help, turn that fruit into wine.

The store also carries beer-making supplies, though it isn’t equipped to make beer on site.

More facts about Wine Kitz Metral Place:

  1. Prices range from $80 to $175 per kit;
  2. Kits can be taken home for the do-it-yourselfer or fermented at the store. There is a $55 winemaking fee if the wine is made in the store;
  3. Each kit (except for Ice Wine) yields about 30-750 ml bottles. Ice wines yield 30-375 ml bottles, with gift-giving bottles available for purchase;
  4. Wines take from four to eight weeks to be ready for bottling, depending on the wine;
  5. Customers can bring their own bottles or buy bottles or wine bags at the store.
  6. There are monthly specials as well as pop-up weekly specials; and
  7. With the store’s loyalty program, buy 10 and the 11th of similar quality is free.