Great Wine at Restaurants Without the Big Price Tag

I have always been frustrated at the price paid for wine in a restaurant. I know that liquor sales are what make most restaurants profitable and I can't fault them for that. I don't even mind paying $20 for a bottle that might otherwise sell for $10 at the store. What I get riled up about is the bottle that retails for $50-100 and can cost upwards of $200 on the wine list. In recent years I have found that there is an alternative to the high prices. Corkage!

For those not familiar with corkage it is the idea of bringing your own bottle of wine to dinner and having the restaurant, for a small fee, open and serve the wine. They are reasonably entitled to the fee because they serve the wine and furnish glasses. The fee is usually anywhere from $5 to $20 and usually corresponds to the menu prices. In some places that choose not to have a liquor license it may even be free.

Given our current economic crisis (I know, another blogger trying to capitalize on the big news headline, how original), I think it is fair to say that many of us are looking to save a little money. I am by no means advocating bringing a bottle of two buck chuck and paying $20 to have it opened with dinner (though it that's your style well I won't stop you). What I am advocating is picking up a $50 or more bottle of wine and paying the $20 for corkage. You can usually find some fantastic bottles at this price, and some even cheaper. That makes a $50 bottle a $70 bottle, that might have cost you as much as $200 at the restaurant.

One of my favorites for this is Tango Sur. I have written about Tango Sur before, but I just wanted to highlight its free corkage. Beer, wine, they might even let you bring a bottle of everclear if you were so inclined (eech). The point is that it is a great place to enjoy a fantastic bottle of wine with a fantastic meal and save some coin.

On the higher end of things I recently brought a bottle of 1998 Larrivet-Haut-Brion to Mon Ami Gabi. It was a fantastic wine that there was no way I could afford had I tried to buy it off a list (that is if they even had it). Sure I paid a markup on it, but it was stil lvery reasonable comparatively.

Chicago is awash in restaurants and almost all of them will accomodate you if you are willing to work with them. I recommend calling to find out the corkage policy before visiting. Some of them will even waive the fee if you buy a bottle off the list first.

One more nice resource for Chicago is the book BYOB Chicago. The book details restaurants that offer free corkage. If you don't find the restaurant in the book, call, I can almost guarantee they have a policy and will be happy to help you out.

Highlighting Some Upcomming Events

I wanted to highlight a couple of interesting wine events in the city that are coming up in the next few weeks.

Lions...Tigers...and Wines, Oh My!: Tomorrow! This is a shameful admission, but despite having lived in Chicago for almost 4 years now, I've never been to the Lincoln Park Zoo. If I wasn't predisposed tomorrow night I would absolutely be taking a train ride into the city. This one just strikes me as fun. Apparently 15 New Zealand Winegrowers (I don't know if that means vineyard owners, winemakers, or winery reps) will be pouring at the zoo tomorrow. Certainly brings new meaning to having a little barnyard in your Pinot Noir. Details here: http://www.lpzoo.org/events/wine.html

Windy City Wine Festival: on September 7th-8th Binny's is hosting the Windy City Wine Festival. This takes place at Grant Park. The event seems like a well organized deal, though I've never been. It looks like there is a large contingent of vendors that attend. No doubt if you are in the city that weekend this would be a good one to check out. I don't really get the pricing structure though. $25 for 6 tastes. Those better be big tastes. I don't really think this event is for the serious drinker. Vendors seem to be the bigger "value" brands, and I doubt anyone is pouring Silver Oak or Mouton-Rothschild at this one. Even with the likely lack of heavy hitters, its hard to pass on wine beneath the Chicago skyline on a late summer afternoon in Grant Park. Details Here: http://www.windycitywinefestival.com/

Illini Lose Right To Buy Wine From Out Of State Retailers

Tuesday the Illinois Senate voted 49-5 to pass HB-429, effectively stripping you and me of the right to buy wine from retailers across state lines. Tom Wark over at Fermentation has the scoop.

Of course, wine retailers across the country, who had been invited into Illinois for 15 years to cultivate a market of wine lovers, have been told they are no longer welcome to do business with those or any other Illinois wine lovers.

It is disappointing. This directly impacts an Illinois Consumer's ability to find wine at good prices. Sites like wine.com, Snooth, wine woot, winestilsoldout, and wine searcher are pretty much off limits to you and me (See edit below). This is really sad, because a renaissance in wine sales is about to take place on the internet with innovators like WineQ and Snooth leading the way, and we are left out in the cold.

I join Tom in saying to the Illinois Legislature "Shame on You". This was a blatant disregard for the rights and interests of your constituents and a total sell out to lobbyists and corporate interests. I haven't dug deep enough to find out if my senator voted for it (though I wrote multiple times urging against it), but if I find out that was the case, my vote will go somewhere else next time.

I'm still holding out for a challenge of the bill in the courts, hopefully it will be found unconstitutional. Until then, I guess we are out of luck.

Edit: Snooth founder Philip James commented that Snooth has recently added some in state retailers, including Sams Wine, and that they can now ship to Illinois consumers. He also points out that wine.com has a presence in Illinois and should be able to ship to us. Yay! Unfortuantely there are hundreds of retailers who no longer have this luxury.

Wine Tasting Notes

This is a blog about wine, and so from time to time I will talk about wines I've tasted. I want this blog to be about "finding, drinking, and sharing wine in Chicago", so I don't want to spend time reviewing wine on the site. For a few weeks now, I've been using Snooth.com for my wine reviews. Snooth is a social networking site for wine. Part of its functionality allows users to review and rate wines. You can find a feed of the wine reviews on the right sidebar of the site. If I mention a wine in the blog, you can expect that it will be reviewed on Snooth. My rating system is following the recommendations of Tim Elliot at winecast.net.

Let me know what you think. Do you like the Snooth idea, or would you rather the wine reviews end up on the main page? I'm still experimenting with this, so feedback would be very helpful.

FYI, if you use a blog reader, you can subscribe to my reviews here.

Chicago's Great Wine Selection

Living in the third largest city in the US has its perks. One of my favorites is the ready access to an enormous selection of quality wines. I was reminded of just how spoiled i am on a trip to Evansville IN this weekend.

I always like to bring wine to my host when I stay with friends. If someone is willing to put me up for a weekend, feed me, and show me a good time, the least I can do is share a good bottle of wine with them. Normally I would bring a bottle with me either from my "cellar" or from one of the local wine shops here in the north burbs. Faced with 100 degree heat and an overnight stopover on the way down south, I decided to take my chances with the local liquor store instead of bringing my host a bottle of cooked wine.

I took the recommendation of friends in town on where to find a good selection of wine in Evansville, but I came up short. There were 3 bottles of wine that fit my criteria, and 2 of them were way too expensive for even the best of friends. I was somewhat limited because my friends had asked for a cabernet to go with dinner. That left me with a single choice of Frogs Leap 2003 Napa Cabernet (see "What I'm Drinking" on the right sidebar for a review). I was very disappointed, as a trip to Sam's or Binny's would have revealed literally hundreds of cabernets in the $40 range from nearly a dozen countries or regions.

Fortunately I was able to redeem myself with a nice bottle of Pinot Noir from Benton Lane (see that in the sidebar too). Unfortunately my hosts were not big Pinot drinkers, so the enjoyment was somewhat lost on them, but I was celebrating inside.

I'm happy to be back in Chicago where I can hit up a good liquor store at the drop of a hat. I guess I'll have to figure out some way to transport wine safely in the future, because relying on small towns to get my wine just won't cut it.

Preparing For A Tasting

I mentioned in my first post that I would be presenting notes from the Midwest Wine Expo next week. I thought as a preview to that I would discuss what I'm expecting, and how I'm preparing for a tasting that includes 700 wines.
First of all I think it is important to note that I haven't been to this tasting before, so I don't really know what to expect from this particular event. Normally I approach a large tasting as an opportunity to taste and evaluate wines that I can't afford to buy. My goal at a tasting is to educate my palate. I have a pretty good idea of what I like in the $10-$15 range, so I don't plan to spend much time tasting those wines. Unfortunately my wallet does not afford me much experience with the $50+ wines, so that's where I'll be concentrating most of my efforts.
The first thing I'm looking for at this particular tasting is the seminars. There are 2 seminars in particular, the one on French wines and the one on Napa Valley sub-appelations, that interest me. The French wine seminar is going to be given by a master of wine, so I expect it to be an interesting exploration of the country with some great wines to sample. The Napa seminar is a focus on sub appellations, and as a rule the more specific the appelation, the more the wine will cost. I think the Napa seminar should be a great opportunity to try some reserve wines from some of the more famous Napa producers that routinely sell for $125 a bottle.
Next comes the dilemma of figuring out what to do with the rest of my time. The seminars should eat up 1 1/2 - 2 hrs, so that leaves another 3 hours for tasting wines. 3 hours of wine tasting seems like plenty of time to get through the over 700 wines being poured. 180 minutes for 700 wines is about 4 wines a minute. Hmm, maybe I need to scale that back a bit. My experience has shown me that I can taste a wine about every 4-5 minutes, so I should plan to taste about 30 - 40 wines throughout the day. I looked through the list Binny's has published on their website and picked out the producers that interest me. I'll have to whittle this list down to about 25 producers. I figure each producer will be pouring more than one wine, so I should expect that I might want to try more than one at a table. Also I want to leave some time (and sobriety) for any wines that peak my interest in the heat of the moment.
Now is a good time to mention the sobriety aspect of a wine tasting. I'm all about responsible drinking, especially when the drinking requires driving to and from the venue. So remember that at a tasting like this, it is perfectly acceptable, and pretty much mandatory at 40+ wines, to spit. 40 1 oz samples would be the equivalent of 1.5 bottles of wine. That doesn't even include the samples I'm going to get at the seminars. If I were to swallow all the wine I tasted throughout the day, I would end up consuming over 2 bottles of wine, and would be WAY over the legal limit when I drove home in the afternoon. It just isn't worth it. Besides, this way I can get home and relax with a bottle of my favorite wine from the day.
Now that I have a plan, and have resolved to spit, all that is left to do is head out the door. I'm counting the days until Binny's Midwest Wine Expo. Hopefully I'll see you there.

Protecting Your Right To Drink What You Want

Tom Wark, over at Fermentation, wrote an excellent post on the current Illinois Bill to ban out of state wine retailers from shipping wine to you and me. If you find this reprehensible, and you should, please write your state representative.

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.