Navigating the Windy City
Wine in Chicago is a series that covers the best places and people for wine in Chicago. (We try to keep things simple around here.) Award-winning author and humorist Bull Garlington highlights wine tastings, restaurants with great lists, and the best wine stores in Chicago.
His “Wine and Song” series showcases a great song paired with a great wine, picked by a great sommelier.
If you like wine, whether you’re an expert with an advanced palate, someone who wants to learn, or a person who simply knows what they like, this column will help you find fantastic places to indulge. You’ll also laugh so hard you’ll spit wine out your nose. (This is a good thing.)
Oda Mediterranean Cuisine invited Your Chicago Guide to a dinner to sample their traditional and modern Mediterranean fare, an homage to the foods of the Ottoman kitchen. Tucked away on the east side of North Clark street, just before the Ashland intersection, sits one of the finest restaurants I have visited in Chicago. That is …
Oda features 6 Georgian wines and a delectable homage to the foods of the Ottoman kitchenRead More
It’s hot. It’s stupid hot. It’s asphalt melting under your feet, sweat through your clothes, exploding into flame hot and I’m thirsty and I want a glass of red wine but come on—if I pour one out on my patio it’s just gonna boil. I wish I could serve it cold, but I’m no idiot. …
Not your average Joe, Joe’s Imports shines in Fulton Market. Come for the wine. Stay for the food. Come back for the hospitality. Go let Joe work his magic on you!
THE TRACK “Dreams” | Fleetwood Mac | Rumours released in 1977, the band’s only number-one hit. But really, this song was written by Stevie Nicks, alone at a piano in a stylish bedroom studio belonging to Sly and the Family Stone. Fleetwood Mac was experiencing a tumultuous emotional train wreck only achievable by coked-out musicians …
Wine and song is an occasional series on Wine in Chicago featuring a local sommelier challenged to pair a great song with a great wine. Song “Fake Plastic Trees,” Radiohead, from their 1995 album, The Bends. Radiohead found themselves in the charts with their grungy hit, Creep, in 1992. The label had pushed them to come …
You may have overlooked Steadfast. Like, there you are furiously thumbing through Yelp reviews for local beef and burgundy joints because your senior partner just did you a solid and you want to take her out for a chop and some Chave but merde: The Loop. The prices. You’re just an associate. You drive a …
Wine and song is an occasional series on Wine in Chicago featuring a local sommelier challenged to pair a great song with a great wine. Song “Feeling Good,” written by Anthony Newley and Leslie Bricusse; recorded by Nina Simone for her 1965 album, I Put a Spell on You. It was never released as a single …
Wine and song is an occasional series on Wine in Chicago featuring a local sommelier challenged to pair a great song with a great wine. Song: “Baker Street,” Gerry Rafferty; #2 on Billboard, 1979. A song that captures the transition from the soft rock of the 70s to the AOR of the 80s. It is a …
Del Frisco’s Double Eagle Steakhouse. It’s a cold October evening, one of the first really cool nights of the year. I’m walking into one of the private rooms upstairs next to the top of the Wine Tower when their Master Sommelier, Amy Lutchen, hands me a glass of 2017 Darioush Viognier and my ability to describe …
Freaking Out For Five Darioush Wines at Del Frisco’sRead More
I’m standing in the doorway of the stunning private room at the Fig & Olive in the Gold Coast. Waiters are scooting around me with trays full of dishes that look like they are plated just so someone can take their picture. A charming hostess is pouring me another glass of an Italian Rosé and I’m …
The wine cellar at Benny’s Chop House is immediately behind the bar. It’s tall and narrow. Just wide enough for two people to pass each other if they’re really close friends. We’ve scooted all the way back, past the working end of the bar’s soda machine that hisses and scares the daylights out of everybody. We’re …
Wine industry database superstar SevenFifty launched their industry-only tasting event, Too Legit to Spit, at Morgan Manufacturing Monday night. Twenty-five top Illinois distributors showed up to serve their best bottles of booze to Chicago buyers, sellers, and beverage managers. Big Star’s staff offered trays of walking tacos and pork balls as a DJ mixed 70s blue-eyed …
