Steven Campbell was a restauranteur and owned a neighborhood bistro, La Maison (1978-1985) before opening one of Toronto’s first wine bars, the Delisle Wine Bar in 1985.
At the Delisle, he won 8 Wine Spectator Awards of Excellence (1988-1995) for having one of the greatest wine lists in the world. In 1990, he became a certified Sommelier and in 1994 purchased Lifford Wine Agency that he owned until -2020. By 2000, Lifford became one of the largest suppliers of premium wines to the hospitality sector and became a carbon-neutral company in 2005. Lifford won numerous awards from the hospitality industry and led many community-based philanthropic wine events to raise funds for healthcare, the arts, and the environment – planting over 90,000 trees with Tree Canada between 2005-2020.
In 2018, he created the world’s first international family of carbon neutral wines Campbell Kind Wines from six countries. Steven was awarded an Honorary Doctor of Laws from York University in 2019 in recognition of his community leadership and environmental stewardship. He is an inductee of the Commanderie du Bontemps de Medoc and the Confraria do Vinho do Porto. He’s also a member of the boards of directors of the Canadian Association of Professional Sommeliers’ Ontario Chapter (since 2016) and Grapes for Humanity (since 2020).
With Grapes for Humanity, he has led charitable wine auctions to support the hospitality industry during the COVID-19 pandemic, and to battle the climate crisis. As of summer of 2022 over $1 million has been raised to support the battle against the Climate Crisis with donations to organizations such as Tree Canada and the Nature Conservancy of Canada.
He is now honored to be the Canadian representative for the Porto Protocol.
