Queen’s Park is hoping 2016 will be a vintage year for Ontario wine drinkers.

With six-packs of beer finally available on the first supermarket shelves in December, Premier Kathleen Wynne wants to uncork more good news for consumers in the new year.

But getting wine into grocery stores is proving to be even trickier than breaking the foreign-owned Beer Store monopoly.

“It’s more complex than beer,” said Finance Minister Charles Sousa, who has been overseeing the file for Wynne. “There are a lot of trade issues that we have to be cognizant of. The more we get into it, the more complex (the) issues are.”

Ed Clark, the government’s assets adviser and key architect of the liberalization of beer sales, had wanted to complete his wine report by Christmas.

“I’m not going to force Mr. Clark to come to a decision. . . I’d rather us do the right thing at the right time,” the treasurer said.

“We have some grandfathered clauses in there that we must protect. It’s also trying to protect our domestic growers and wineries,” he said.

Indeed, Ontario’s privately owned Wine Rack and Wine Shop kiosks now operating inside many supermarkets have licences that predate the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) and the Canada-European Union Comprehensive Economic and Trade Agreement (CETA).

Those 268 licensees are permitted to sell quality VQA wine made here as well as blended foreign wine bottled in Ontario.

It’s a valuable exemption that benefits some domestic producers, and one that could be at risk if wide-open sales are permitted.

As things currently stand, the provincially owned Liquor Control Board of Ontario has a lucrative retail monopoly on quality wines from France, Italy, Spain, Australia, Argentina, the United States and other countries.

Clark is trying to come up with a compromise that does not hurt the LCBO or domestic wineries while still boosting choice for consumers.

“When you’re dealing with a lot of small French producers or California producers who are quite prepared to use the trade weapons, you have to be very careful,” he told the Star earlier this year.

Last April, Clark released a 63-page blueprint that mapped out how six-packs would eventually be sold in 450 of Ontario’s 1,500 supermarkets.

But it took until November for the government to announce the first 60 licences, including 25 in the Greater Toronto Area, had been sold at auction to Loblaws, Metro, Sobeys, Walmart and some independent grocers.

Booze by the numbers

450 supermarkets will eventually sell beer and wine

651 LCBO stores now sell spirits, wine, beer and cider

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448 Beer Stores sell ales and lagers

268 Wine Rack and Wine Shop kiosks and outlets sell VQA wine and inexpensive “blended-in-Ontario” bottles

216 LCBO “agency stores” located inside rural supermarkets are currently operating