Winnipeg’s Hidden Tie to Italy’s Fine Wines
-the inspiring story of tolaini wines
I am now taking appointments for the weekend of March 22 and 23, 2025, on the hour, for personal shop time at Cork in Bow Valley Square, Calgary. Yes, the store is closed on weekends and I am opening it just for you! Please get it touch with me! This is the favorite part of my job!
Do you live in Alberta and would like some personalized attention from me? Please contact me - I offer personal wine curation & individual private shop time. It is getting more and more popular!
Thanks to all the paid subscribers for their support! This funding helps cover the costs involved in creating these weekly articles!
Appreciate my wine recommendations? Enjoy my personal wine curation service? Find my wine writing valuable? Consider upgrading to a paid subscription! This helps me continue sharing the world of wine with you.
Looks like you just got back from somewhere again.
Yup. This time Winnipeg.
No wine there again … but somehow, I am sure it became all about wine. You grew up there, didn’t you?
Right again!
Upon landing we went to a wine store called Jones & Co., which used to be called Banville & Jones. I often make recommendations to my friends and family from Jones & Co, as it is centrally located to many of my ‘Winnipeg people’.
The Jones and Banville names belong to sisters born to the Tolaini family.
Didn’t you pour Tolaini wines at the Calgary Winter Club event in January?
Yes.
I had never made the connection between Tolaini, the Italian wine producer, and Winnipeg. The sisters’ father Pier Luigi Tolaini, known as ‘Louie’, moved from Italy to Virden, Manitoba in 1956, a town to which his two aunts had also immigrated from Italy years earlier. Virden is a town, population 3000, about a three-hour drive west of Winnipeg.
Aged 19, Louie came with nothing more than a grade 6 education and the ambition to not be poor anymore. The morning he left his family home in Tuscany, the following words came to him, eventually becoming a pseudo mantra: “I will never, never be poor again. I will never eat polenta again. I will never drink bad wine and someday I will come back and make the best wine in Italy …”
He worked three jobs and eventually purchased a truck with which he provided services to the Virden energy sector. This eventually led to the creation of a trucking company called Virden Freightways. This company transitioned to become TransX, which transported livestock and freight between Virden and Winnipeg.
When Louie sold his company to Canadian National Railway Company in 2019 it had become one of North America’s top providers of integrated transportation solutions. It is still based in Winnipeg and consists of 11 locations throughout Canada and the US, over 1800 employees, and more than 4000 trucks.
In 1998 Louie, now aged 62, kept true to his mantra and bought land in the commune of Castelnuovo Berardenga, within the Chianti Classico sub-region of Italy, to create Tolaini Winery. This is the same time that his two daughters, Lia and Tina, opened the Winnipeg wine store they named Banville & Jones, their respective married names.
This is the store you referred to at the start, right?
Yes.
Soon after, Lia focused on working with Louie at Tolaini and founding a New York based wine importation company called Banville Wine Merchants. This company imports Tolaini’s wines to North America, as well as other wines from Italy, France, Germany, England, Argentina, and New Zealand.
Tolaini’s logo shown here has a bronze symbol, the equivalent to the letter ‘T’ from the ancient Etruscan alphabet.
I get it! Hic.
T is for Tolaini!
Have you been dipping into the outstanding featured wine already? (I am personally savoring it right now.)
The name Tuscany...
Also starts with a T!
Oh boy, you are cut off.
As I was saying … The name Tuscany comes from the name Etruscan, for the people who lived in central Tuscany over 2000 years ago. Using their equivalent letter in the logo is a way to honor them. Here is the same symbol sculpted into the rock at the front of the estate’s entrance.
Tolaini’s current plantings include Cabernet Sauvignon, Sangiovese, Merlot, Cabernet Franc, and Canaiolo.
Okay, okay, okay, I confess, I hit the sauce already and it is fabulous! Can we just wrap it up … hic.
Soon. Let me honor Louie for a moment. Sadly, Louie died of cancer in 2020 at the age of 83, leaving Lia to take charge of the Tolaini winery. So the featured wine was created under her watch as it is a 2021 vintage, with a blend of 50% Cab Sauv and 50% Cab Franc.
Its name is Valdisanti and it is considered a Super Tuscan.
Correct!
There exists a small church adjacent to the vineyard where the grapes for this wine are grown. Within the church is a painting which includes a chalice and serpent, as seen on the bottle label below. This is the symbol of Saint John the Evangelist (Giovanni in Italian). The vineyard was hence named San Giovanni.
What a great story – all tied to your recent trip to your motherland! I now feel complete!
So do I! Cheers everyone!
Enjoying my recommendations? Consider upgrading to a paid subscription.
Tolaini ‘Valdisanti’ 2021 from Central Tuscany, Italy
Style: Full body old world red wine
Varieties: 50% Cabernet Sauvignon, 50% Cabernet Franc
This outstanding wine has high fine-grained, high quality tannins and pronounced aromas on the nose including enticing violet. The palate shows precise flavors of just ripe red and black cherry, blackberry, black currant, thyme, spearmint, and anise. It has the additional complexity of cedar, toast, graphite, tea, tobacco, leather, earth, and gravel completed by a long finish.
Best pairings: Bistecca alla fiorentina, Lamb with fennel and rosemary, Braised short ribs, Pasta with sausage and fennel, and Cheese: Parmigiano-Reggiano, and Pecorino.
Serving Temperature: 16-18 degrees Celsius
Serving Tips: Ready to drink! Pour and enjoy!
Price: ~$40 Cdn
I have compiled all my wine recommendations in one place. I will do my best to keep this up to date. I also include the link(s) to the article in which the wine was featured.
Like what you are reading? Click on the ❤ to let me know it resonated with you!
SOURCES:
Banville wine merchants on Instagram (no date) Instagram. Available at: https://www.instagram.com/banvillewine/p/CpiQd0fL91P/ (Accessed: 05 March 2025).
Fodera, J. (2023) Pierluigi Tolaini: A lasting legacy, John Fodera’s Tuscan Vines. Available at: https://johnfodera.com/pierluigi-tolaini-a-lasting-legacy/ (Accessed: 05 March 2025).
Goldsborough, G. (no date) Memorable Manitobans: Pierluigi ‘louie’ Tolaini (1936-2020). Available at: https://www.mhs.mb.ca/docs/people/tolaini_p.shtml (Accessed: 05 March 2025).
Harding, J. and Robinson, J. (2023) The oxford companion to wine. Oxford, United Kingdom: Oxford University Press.
Legal notice (no date) Tolaini. Available at: https://www.tolaini.it/en/ (Accessed: 05 March 2025).
Macintosh, M. (2020) Apr 2020: TransX founder, philanthropist Louie Tolaini dies, Winnipeg Free Press. Available at: https://www.winnipegfreepress.com/breakingnews/2020/04/19/transx-founder-philanthropist-louie-tolaini-dies (Accessed: 05 March 2025).
MacNeil, K. (2022) The wine bible. New York, NY: Workman Publishing.
Pierluigi (Louie) Tolaini (no date) Winnipeg Free Press Passages. Available at: https://passages.winnipegfreepress.com/passage-details/id-272262/PIERLUIGI-TOLAINI (Accessed: 05 March 2025).
TransX group of companies (no date) LinkedIn. Available at: https://www.linkedin.com/company/transx_group_of_companies/ (Accessed: 05 March 2025).
Tolaini News 2024. Available at: https://www.banvillewine.com/f/producer/93-tolaini.pdf (Accessed: 06 March 2025).
Wine & Spirit Education Trust (2021) D3: Wines of the World - An accompaniment to the WSET Level 4 Diploma in Wines. Version 1.2. London: Wine & Spirit Education Trust.
Sadly, Tolaini wines do not appear to be available at the LCBO. :-(
Great story, small world.
I started my career in Virden & ended up back there in 1985. We used TransX hauling service. I met Louie a couple of times, & he personally arranged my wine cellar transportation back to Calgary in 88. You could trust him with a handshake. I’ve tasted most of his wines👍👍❤️🍷