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Welcome!

Meet Blair Sampson, Regional Director for the Atlantic division of Wine Kitz Canada. Blair is responsible for the support and growth of the Atlantic division of Wine Kitz.

Regional Director’s Background:

Born in Cape Breton, Nova Scotia in 1956, Blair moved to Ontario after high school, where he spent 18 years working in various capacities for a national retailer. Wanting to work for himself, Blair drew on the knowledge he gained about running a successful business, and turned his efforts to owning and operating a rural pub for several years.

In 1991, Blair spent 6 months travelling throughout Australia, where he developed an interest in wine and winemaking. Upon returning back to Canadain 1992, he settled down in the Halifax area and decided to combine his retail and pub experience by opening his first of two winemaking stores.

After 8 years as a successfully independent owner of two winemaking stores, Blair decided it was time to take his business to the next level, and in 2000 he joined the Wine Kitz Franchise network as Regional Director/ Master Franchiser for the Atlantic region. Since joining Wine Kitz, he has grown the Atlantic region from one inherited store to the current eight locations.

To ensure he keeps in touch with the grass roots and the ever-changing industry issues, he continues to own and operate the New Minas location.

Over the last two decades, Blair has seen many positive changes in the winemaking industry, and has been a large part of bringing these changes to the Atlantic region. As an innovator in the industry, Blair helped spearhead the introduction of in-store winery services in New Brunswick (hopefully soon-to-be-available in Nova Scotia).

Blair is an active member of the industry’s first regional association, and is also a founding and active member of the newly formed Atlantic Fermenter’s Association. He foresees many more positive changes over the next few years as product quality, consumer wine knowledge and expanded services continue to drive and grow the consumer-made wine industry.

make wine atlantic canadaCONTACT:

For information on becoming a successful Wine Kitz owner yourself, contact Blair at (902) 462-7884, or send an him an email.

Please see our Available Locations page to choose the location which may work best for you.

See our ‘Testimonials’ section for information about people just like you who own and operate successful Wine Kitz franchises!

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PRESS RELEASE
Wine Kitz Flows To Charlottetown

Wine Kitz Atlantic is pleased to announce the opening of their 9th Atlantic location. Located at 155 Belvedere Avenue, Charlottetown, this is the first Wine Kitz store on Prince Edward Island..

“With the recent changes in liquor regulations allowing for the introduction of Brew-on Premise on Prince Edward Island, we are very excited to be in a position to open a full-service wine & beer making shop to serve the people of Charlottetown and surrounding area,” said Blair Sampson, regional director for Wine Kitz Atlantic.

“Our new location has state-of-the-art wine processing equipment,” says local businessman and Wine Kitz owner Darren Holt. “Most of our wine equipment is stainless steel for cleanliness reasons. Our commercial bottle washer assures clean, sanitized bottles every time. Our bottle fillers will fill each wine bottle in less than 20 seconds. Corking wine bottles is made easy with our pneumatic corker.”

Although set-up is focused on in-store winemaking, this store offers a full compliment of services. “Home winemakers are an important part of our business,” expresses Darren. “We stock over 100 wine kit styles for take-home or in-store customers. Fruit winemakers will be happy to learn that we stock specialty yeasts and many wine additives in various package sizes. We even rent or lend out wine filters & floor corkers.”

Beer makers haven’t been forgotten. The store stocks a large selection of beer making kits and equipment including beer bottles, caps, sugar and other popular beer making adjuncts.

“We paid special attention to our site selection,” says Darren. “Our priorities for an ideal Charlottetown location included staying away from the high tourist traffic areas of the city. Our location had to include easy access into and easy exit out of our location. It also had to include ample parking. We feel we have accomplished this by setting up shop in the MacLauchlan Centre. We trust that our customers will be very happy with our choice of location.”

“Come visit with us soon, meet our staff and tour our facility,” exclaims the enthusiastic new owner.


Innovation and Advanced Learning Minister Allan Campbell, left, Darren Holt, owner of Wine Kitz, and Robert Mitchell, MLA for Sherwood-Charlottetown, take part in Wine Kitz’s official opening last Friday in Charlottetown.

Wine Kitz Charlottetown can be reached by phone at (902) 894-9403 or via e-mail at winekitzcharlottetown@bellaliant.ca. Also visit the Wine Kitz Charlottetown website at http://winekitzcharlottetown.ca.