The Premise

I've been wanting to blog about wine for a while now. I'm hoping it will allow me to expand my knowledge of wine as well as offer a platform for me to share what I know and what I experience about wine in Chicago, America's Third Coast City. When I moved to Chicago in 2003, I expected to find a budding wine culture, much like the one in New York or California. What I found was a hesitance about wine. People in the area drank wine, but they didn't consider it part of their daily lives. It seemed to me that ordering a glass of wine at a restaurant was a treat rather than the expectation. It also seemed like a great wine list was reserved for a great restaurant. I have spent very little time in New York or San Francisco in my adult life, but my experience has shown me that even a mediocre restaurant will take its wine list seriously in these cities.
In the past three years I've seen the city begin to embrace wine in new ways. Restaurants are making an effort to improve their wine lists, friends are more interested in learning about wine, and the quality of wine shops is improving dramatically.
I hope you will join me as I explore Chicago's wine culture. Tune in next week for a review of the Midwest Wine Expo in Oak Brook. If you want to check the event out, you can get tickets at Binny's.