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as seen on canada.com

The proposition is tougher than you think. “You may only purchase or open Canadian Wine for the duration of the challenge….for 365 days beginning on September 1st, 2013.” Only Canadian wine for a whole year? No Burgundy? No Brunello, Barolo, German Riesling, no Champagne???!!! This challenge might be harder than the Seinfeld contest.

Related – Canadian wine reviews

To be fair, some exceptions and exemptions will be allowed, “like international wine events that may be attended, dinner parties where the host unwittingly opens something non-Canadian, wine-related courses you may be taking where other wines may be opened.” Travel is also exempt. Still, every night at home you choose to open a bottle of wine it has to be something Canadian. That’s a whole year of shunning the rest of the cellar and 90 per cent of local wine store shelves. Tougher than you think.

Photo: Matt and Calvin Hanselmann and Uncork Ontario.

Two Canadian wine lovers are behind The Great Canadian Wine Challenge. Shawn McCormick of Uncork Ontario and Calvin Hanselmann were lamenting the fact that #CanadianWineDay (#CdnWineDay) is only one day. So they decided to challenge each other. Now at least 55 others have said they will do the same. I just spoke to Shawn who took some time away from family vacation time in Haliburton to bring me up to speed. What began as a late night joking around moment following the weekly #ONTWineChat turned into a tête-à-tête challenge between two Twitter buddies. I’m guessing the boys will be best of friends by year’s end.

Wine begins to flow across Canadian provinces

Shawn and Calvin both live in our nation’s capital and have plans this weekend to launch#TGCWC by cracking some, you guessed it, Canadian wine. Registration will be open through the month of September and prizes will be awarded, with special consideration given to the troopers who stick it out from the very beginning until the (not so) bitter end.

To join in the fun, declare your intention in the comments section of this post, or email thegreatcanadianwinechallenge@gmail.com. Commit to a weekly update, via Twitter (#TGCWC hashtag), a blog post, or an email to the organizers (thegreatcanadianwinechallenge@gmail.com) and they will track updates from participants in their weekly update.

Good luck to all who are participating.

Good to go!