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Walk into any LCBO store and you will see hundreds of wines lined up on the shelves. But chances are, you won’t find the wine you drank and loved the night before at your favourite restaurant. That’s because the Liquor Control Board of Ontario, and other provinces where the sale of alcohol is run by a government agency, tend to purchase from larger wineries.

Wine lovers Nelson Abreu and Adam Bekhor hope to solve that problem. “There is a world of wine out there in the shadows and [people] can have it if they know where to get it,” Mr. Abreu says.

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To help bring those wines to Ontario consumers — not just restaurant owners or wine experts — Mr. Abreu and Mr. Bekhor launched e-commerce site WineWire.ca in October 2012.

“We want people to know that they have a lot more choice when it comes to buying wine than what is available at the LCBO stores,” says Mr. Abreu, the chief operating officer of WineWire.

The site works by connecting wine agents legally allowed to sell cases of wine not found on LCBO shelves with customers.