A working resource library for hospitality operators who need wine to perform, not more complexity.
The Diana Gallery at Fontainebleau, one of the rooms I photographed when I travel to meet producers. Knowledge, gathered and put to work.
Most wine resources are written for wine people. The Trade Room is built for operators. Tools, frameworks, and practical intelligence for restaurants, hotels, and venues that need wine to sell, staff to feel confident, and margins to make sense.
The Case
She’s One of the Few: Why a Woman Running a Licensed Wine Import Company in Two Provinces Is Rarer Than It Should Be
A billion dollars of wine moves through BC each year. A handful of people control who gets in.
[Read the piece]
The Restaurants Dying Aren’t the Bad Ones. They’re the Independent Ones.
Why Canada is losing independents specifically, and what a different model looks like.
[Read the piece]
Why It Matters Now
The forecast says Canada loses thousands more independent restaurants before this is over. Some of that is unavoidable. But a meaningful share of it is margin left on the table by operators who never had anyone owning the highest-margin category on their menu.
Wine is the last real lever most independents have not pulled. Not because they do not care. Because nobody ever made the expertise affordable enough to reach them.
“A billion dollars in wine moves through this province every year, and only a handful of people control who gets in,” Plamondon says. “It’s a door that’s locked for most, so I made a key and walked right in. Now I’m holding it open.”
Two provinces. Producers, Burgundy, Portugal, Chile & Argentina. A model built small enough that nobody falls through the cracks.