This bright-yellow building near Bickford Park is a beacon for west-end wine lovers
Canary Counter is Harbord Street’s new wine bar and bottle shop
Celia Mendez, owner of Harbord Street’s bright-yellow bottle shop, has wine coursing through her veins. “I was born in the Canary Islands to a family of winemakers and growers, and I’ve been involved in the process practically since birth,” she says. As a teenager, Mendez travelled across Europe with her father (a fifth-generation wine producer who owns Viñátigo Vineyards), meeting distributors and attending wine fairs. “Whenever I met with portfolio managers, I’d think, That’s what I want to do one day—I want to be on that side.”
Mendez attended business school in Barcelona and briefly worked in e-commerce, but she eventually found her true calling. “In 2018, after proving I could make a living outside of the wine business, I moved to Burgundy to work in the fields for one harvest,” she says. That pivotal year set the course for her future: shortly afterward, she moved to Bordeaux to pursue an MBA in wine marketing and management. In 2019, she completed a six-month internship in Toronto through an importer that carried her family’s wines, which led to a job importing wine from small producers around the world.
While Mendez enjoyed her job, the pandemic planted a seed that took root. “Covid took away face-to-face interactions with customers and clients, and I felt very uninspired being behind a computer screen all day,” she says. “For me, wine wasn’t about money—it was about the makers, the agriculture and the conversations surrounding it.” As restrictions loosened and the Alcohol and Gaming Commission of Ontario allowed wine bars to sell bottles to-go, Mendez got to thinking about opening her own place.
That place is now open. Canary Counter is a tiny shop right next to Bickford Park that focuses on small, independent or family-owned winemakers and growers from lesser-known regions including the Canary Islands, Hungary and parts of Germany. Harbord Street is all the better for it.
“I knew this was a great location for my shop,” she says. “I read an article on consumer behaviour that said people in Toronto don’t walk more than 900 metres for their groceries, so convenience matters—and there’s a real void in this neighbourhood for wine.”
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A weekly rotating by-the-glass list features two reds, two whites, and either an orange or a rosé. “I base my list on diversity and hard-to-find bottles,” says Mendez. Last week, for instance, she had a 2017 chardonnay from Niagara—a region where aged bottles are hard to come by. And every Thursday at 7 p.m., Mendez offers guided flights, taking patrons through the week’s selections. “People love chablis, but that doesn’t mean they want to pay $60 for a bottle. I want to show them that muscadet is very similar—and a third of the price.” It makes sense given that another core value of the shop is affordability: bottles start at $25 and don’t go above $80, making the idea of a casual picnic at the park next door not just feasible but irresistible.
Erin Hershberg is a freelance writer with nearly two decades of experience in the lifestyle sector. She currently lives in downtown Toronto with her husband and two children.
