Australia has complained at the World Trade Organization about the rules applied to the sale of wine by Canada and various Canadian provinces, a WTO filing showed on Tuesday.

"It appears that a range of distribution, licensing and sales measures such as product markups, market access and listing policies, as well as duties and taxes on wine applied at the federal and provincial level may discriminate, either directly or indirectly, against imported wine," Australia said.

The Australian newspaper reported that Australia's Trade Minister Steve Ciobo launched the WTO proceedings after bilateral talks with Canada broke down.

Canada is reported to be Australia's fourth-largest wine export market, with a value of about $197 million Cdn, putting it behind China, the United States and Britain.

"Australia has requested formal WTO consultations on measures discriminating against Australian wine imports that we consider to be clearly inconsistent with Canada's WTO commitments," the newspaper quoted Ciobo as saying.

"Canada's inconsistent measures include extra taxes, fees and markups on imported wine, separate distribution channels reserved for Canadian wine, and restricting sale of imported wine in grocery stores to a 'store within a store,'" Ciobo is reported to have said.

This is from the 16 January 2018 edition of CBC News.