It’s just what the people of Ossington were complaining they needed more of – retail food products.

But their main product is their wine. It’s brew-it-yourself wine and they do the fermenting and brewing on premises. This is how it works: First you show up and choose your wine, and they have a good selection of reds and whites including house reds and whites – blends that go for as low as $55 for 20 litres. This is great if you need some good cooking wine, or just some good late-night plonk. They also have a range of other grapes such as Cabernet Sauvignon, Pinot Grigio and even Amarone. Then you wait for them to make it, which takes between 4 and 6 weeks depending on the grape variety. You can then take home the large batch wine, or use their own bottling machine and bottle the wine yourself on premises, with your own bottles or buy theirs. They have all the corks and the machines right there.

We had never entered until last weekend when we walked in and ordered a kit of 23 litres of Zinfandel, the full batch and bottles, which comes out to about $5.75 per bottle – right around the cheapest price a bottle can be legally sold at the LCBO. Without even laying down a deposit – just giving our names – we were told we’d be called in about 6 weeks when the wine is ready. Then we’ll be able to come in and bottle it.

We watched some other people who were picking up their order and bottling pinot grigio, and it seemed like it would be quite fun. They were using some bottles from Macedo and some of their own, and using some fancy machines to bottle and cork the beverage. There are even labels there, if you need some to put on the bottles.

Even though this company has been on Ossington for a long time, the new version of this company is something we like. We’ll be even more excited when they get more food products too.

The staff was friendly, and quite casual, and invited us to sit down at a table. They warned us that they might not be able to make all the menu items, which was fine. We ordered a salad and the charcouterie platter, as well as a couple glasses of wine. One of the glasses was a little sweeter than we preferred and they were quick to replace it with a another.

Both dishes were quick to arrive and were both interestingly presented as well as made with fresh ingredients. Neither were particularly complex dishes, but sometimes those are the hardest to perfect. Overall a great meal. We’ll need to head back for more!

Oh, and they have their website going at www.union72.ca