About us

Wines we believe in, selected with conviction and represented with the same care.

Founded in 2011, Bambara Sélection is a Quebec-based wine agency representing estates and winemakers from Quebec and around the world across the SAQ, restaurant and consumer markets.

Our approach has remained the same from the beginning: work with independent, small-scale producers, understand what they do in depth, and select wines with a strong identity, a clear sense of place and a story worth telling.

Our portfolio ranges from accessible wines from lesser-known appellations to benchmark wines from established estates. Regardless of price or origin, we approach every wine with the same standards, looking above all for quality, precision and a genuine expression of place.

Our Story

More than fifteen years of building lasting relationships through wine.

The story of Bambara Sélection began well before the agency was founded in 2011. John Bambara’s passion for wine started in his teens. In 1990, an extended trip through Europe’s wine regions set the course for what followed: studies in oenology and wine marketing in Bordeaux, followed by more than 35 years working in the wine industry.

In 2011, he founded Bambara Sélection around a simple belief: good wine shouldn’t be defined by trends or elitism. It should be well made, speak to where it comes from and offer genuine value.

Bambara Sélection has grown considerably since then. Today, our team of 18 brings together expertise across sales, market development, restaurants, operations and communications. This allows us to support the estates we represent at every stage of their development in Quebec, from entering the market to building a presence with the SAQ, restaurants, sommeliers and wine lovers.

Our portfolio has grown as well, while maintaining the same commitment to long-term relationships. Some producers have been with us for many years; others have only recently joined the agency. Our portfolio spans small, under-the-radar growers and benchmark estates, indigenous varieties and classic appellations, everyday bottles and wines built for the cellar.

Today, Bambara Sélection continues to grow around the same idea that has guided us from the beginning: finding wines and producers we believe in, understanding their work in depth and building a lasting presence for them in the Quebec market.

Our philosophy

Great wine starts in the vineyard.

We believe in grower wines: wines made by people who know their land, tend their vineyards with care and strive to express where they come from.

We favour small, independent estates and growers who take a thoughtful approach to their vineyards, soils and winemaking. Organic and biodynamic farming and low-intervention winemaking are often part of that approach, whether certified or not. But quality always comes first. We look for purity of fruit, precision and balance, along with a clear expression of grape variety, vintage and place.

The people behind the bottles matter just as much. We visit the estates, taste with the winemakers and follow their work from vintage to vintage. Those relationships allow us to understand the wines we represent and, just as importantly, tell their stories once they reach Quebec.

To us, representing an estate goes well beyond selling its wines. It means knowing its history, understanding the decisions behind the wines and being able to communicate what sets it apart to sommeliers, SAQ teams and the people who will ultimately open the bottle.