The Best Wine Shops in Montreal

There’s something comforting about swinging by for a bottle on your way home from work — no particular plan, just to see what came in this week. In Montréal, that very European reflex is still young. Since Bill 72 passed in December 2020, restaurants, cafés and bars have been allowed to sell their bottles to go with the purchase of a single food item, where a full meal used to be required. A loaf of bread, a jar of honey or a dish to reheat is enough. They are called “cavistes” or wine shops.

Plenty of them have reinvented themselves as “cavistes” (wine shops). You’ll turn up labels that may never reach the shelves of the SAQ: private imports sold by the bottle, cuvées from growers who work in tiny quantities, easy-drinking vin de soif alongside bottles worth saving for an occasion. And because the law requires food to come with the purchase, many have polished the pretext until it became a selling point in its own right — house rillettes, focaccia, preserves, pastries.

The shelves are sometimes loaded to the ceiling, a chalkboard tracking the new arrivals: these addresses have taken on a European air, the feel of neighbourhood shops you walk into for one bottle and leave with three. You stop in for tomorrow’s picnic, the last-minute host gift, the improvised Tuesday-night supper.

These well-stocked cellars have become genuine anchors for wine lovers — regulars drop by almost daily, as much for the selection as for the conversation.

So there you have it: our picks for the best cavistes in Montréal — the addresses to walk out of with a fine find or two. For more ideas, check out our top spots for natural wine in Montréal, as well as our list of the city’s best wine bars.

Special Mentions Beyond Montréal

Saucette Caviste — Saint-Lambert

On Rue Green, Saucette is as much a caviste as a neighbourhood buvette — a formula still rare on the South Shore. More than a hundred natural and organic wine references, refreshed as new arrivals come in. You have a glass with a few sharing plates before leaving with the bottle. Also worth watching: the winemaker evenings and bus outings to Québec’s vineyards.

Réserve Naturelle — Sutton

In the heart of Sutton, the address is as much a cellar as a wine bar. The selection draws on some twenty agencies, often bottles that landed in very small quantities, and the by-the-glass list rotates every week — cider and sake included. From the kitchen, small sharing plates, with cheese and charcuterie boards leading the way.

La Petite Soif — Gatineau

In the Hull sector, sommelier Véronique Rivest — the name behind Soif — has brought caviste, restaurant and fine grocer together under one roof since October 2024. The selection gives pride of place to natural and organic wines, with an openly declared soft spot for Québec producers. You eat in, or leave with a bottle and a dish to reheat.