It has been a 10-year process for Gamula who saw a virtual crawl space, housing no more than 150 wine selections, increase to the 400 selections now on the list. He has another 200 wines not yet on the master list but available for purchasing if asked (many of them are not yet ready to drink, however).

"I'm like a kid in a candy store," Gamula says looking around his roomy cellar piled high with wooden cases of wine and thousands more bottles stored in racks. "We wanted to make a statement for the area. We're serious players in the wine-restaurant business. The best in the Golden Horseshoe."

And while 8,000 bottles is an impressive number, it's what Gamula has collected for his patrons that is more impressive. He has just purchased 32 cases of rare Bordeaux from superb vintages to fill in the depth in his French wines. It was an involved process getting the wines to Canada, as most are not available through the LCBO or anywhere else in Ontario.

The majority of the wines purchased are highly sought after "classified" Bordeaux labels from 2000, 2003 and 2006. He stuck primarily to Margaux, Pomerol and St. Emilion including big-name Chateau wines such as Tour de Pez, Cos D'Estournel, Cheval Blanc, Lynch Bages, Mouton Rothschild and Figeac. Most of the Bordeaux from the recent purchase will be laid down for years and offered to diners when the wines mature a bit.

While Gamula, who grew up in Niagara on a farm and was trained at George Brown College in Toronto, is a big fan of Bordeaux and other classic Old World wine regions, he has built an impressive list of Niagara wines as well. Over a third of the wine list at Prince of Wales (and 70% of sales) is from the finest wineries in the Niagara Peninsula. And he has managed to keep in stock some of the finest vintages for regular patrons who appreciate the older wines (ask for the 1998 Trius Red ... he's got about 100 bottles in the cellar).

Gamula works with Chef Andrew Dymond's classic menu to match his wines. Dymond tends to use a lot of locally grown food that Gamula finds easy to match with his vast collection of wines.