Although I missed this year’s Wine Bloggers’ Conference in Somona, I did make it to a great local event here in Toronto, a tasting hosted by the Lifford Wine Agency for Canadian bloggers.

The tasting was held at the Fine Wine Reserve, a high-tech wine storage facility in the heart of downtown Toronto. After tasting a couple of dozen wines from around the world, including the stellar Joseph Phelps Le Mistral ($66.50 per bottle) Shiraz/Syrah blend from Napa, we took of tour of the storage area. The unmarked underground facility has three-foot-thick walls, double-door passcard entry and temperature- and humidity-controlled storage. It has a distinctly James Bond-like feel to it. Inside, thousands of bottles of wine are stacked in personal lockers that open up automatically when the client’s passcard is swiped upon entry. The Lifford Wine Agency also stores its wine there before shipping it off to clients. It was quite sight to look at millions of dollars of wine sitting in one place – some of it from the best years and the best producers in Bordeaux.

Fine Wine Reserve serves a wide range of customers. Some are condo dwellers who don’t have any cellar space at home, others simply have too much wine to fit into their cellars and need somewhere to store the overflow (wouldn’t I like to have this problem), and there are also small storage lockers for people who have some nice bottles they want to keep safe and sound. This is the only facility of this type in Toronto, and there’s similar one in Montreal. If you’re looking for somewhere dependable to age your wine, check to see if your city has one of these urban cellars. You pay a small fee per case every month.