Thank Bacchus it’s Friday!

Hi Fellow Beer and Winefolk!
Come celebrate Friday with us and taste some great beer and wine. It’s FREE! It’s TODAY, 4-7pm.
Cheers!
Candy the Winemonger

Reserve Wine List now available in cafe!!!

Hello fellow Winefolk,

I just completed a labor of love that was a long time in the making: Marion Street Cheese Market’s Reserve Wine List. This means simply that every bottle we have on the shelves can be purchased and consumed in the cafe. I think you’ll find some incredible values. For example, the 2004 Betts & Scholl Hermitage Rouge is $76 on our list; I recently saw it at a very popular downtown restaurant for $155.

Added bonus: you can take home whatever’s left in the bottle if there’s anything left in the bottle!

Cheers, everyone. Hope to see you soon, dining in with a fantastic bottle of wine!

Winemonger Candy

Red Wines in Pretty Pink Summer Dresses!

Hi all,

I really should write more. I enjoy reaching out to my fellow winepeople here!

So it is FINALLY warm enough to drink dry roses every day and every evening. I love these wines, perhaps more than I should. They really are red wines whose must has been left in contact with the grape skins for a little less time than for full-blown red wine. That’s it. No added sugar. No weird unnatural manipulation. No nothing but grape juice. Key words are DRY affordable, food friendly and fun!

I have a bunch of new ones here at the cheese market and every one is a winner. Here’s a list of what’s new in the world of pink wines at Marion Street: 2008 Domaine des Figuiraisse Gris de Gris (France); 2008 Marco Real Garnacha (Spain); 2007 soon-to-be-2008 Cantele Negroamaro (Italy); 2008 Frog’s Leap Gamay (Napa); 2007 Ninet de Pena Grenache/Syrah (France); 2007 McKinely Springs Barbera (Washington); 2008 Carmela Benegas Cabernet Franc (Argentina) and 2007 Laurent Miquel Cinsault/Syrah (France). For pink sparkling wine, I’ve recently added these: NV Marques de Gelida Sparkling Pinot Noir (Spain) and NV Meinklang Sparkling Pinot Noir (Austria). 

And perhaps the best news is that everything above is $20 and under with the majority under $15.

Because we’re crazy, I’m doing two FREE wine tastings this weekend instead of just one: Friday 29 May 3-6pm and Saturday 30 May 1-4pm. The Saturday tasting is every Saturday 1-4pm and it has been a fun kinda mob scene lately. Always FREE. Always fun. Always bitchin’ wine. Bring as many folks as you can.

Cheers, friends,

Candy the winemonger

You can’t judge a wine by its bottle or color or When Not To Run Screaming from an Unknown Bottle of Wine

I see it everyday. If a bottle is tall and skinny, people think horrible thoughts about the fermented grape juice within it. Perhaps we all have a Liebfraumilch story which may or may not be worse than our collegiate tequila story.Let’s look at this bias and see if we can eradicate some fear:

The Tall Skinny Bottle: Admittedly I do not know what the technical term for this shape is and I refer to it as an Alsatian-shaped bottle. Yes, there were scary sweet gross white wines made here in the USA and in other parts, sold on grocery store shelves while masquerading as one of the noblest and most misunderstood wines of all, Riesling. Yes, Riesling can be sweet but good German, Alsatian, American and whoever winemakers make it this way on purpose. When that’s the case, it will say something about that on the label, for example: Spatlese, Auslese, and Late Harvest among other designators. This is dessert wine and that’s the place in the meal where it rightly belongs.

Rieslings lower in residual sugar, such as those with the Kabinett designation are wonderful things to drink. They can be very fruit-forward which I can see folks labeling the sensation as “sweet”. However, I sometimes wonder if it’s psychosomatic; the palate can detect residual sugar starting at a level of approximately 1.2g/L. Many dry Rieslings have residual sugar levels of 0.8g/L and lower. It’s just that the grape is generous with its fruit. When vinified with care, it will be generous with everything else: minerals, floral nuances, and acidity to name a few characteristics.

Other varietals live in tall skinny bottles as well. Most Alsatian whites -Pinot Blanc, Gewurztraminer, and Pinot Gris to name just a few – have traditionally been bottled in tall green bottles. Of these, I feel the need to defend Gewurz the most. A bastardized grape, it has shown up in the New World as sticky sweet junk far removed from the complex spicy wine into which it can be made. It is often overlooked and feared for both its glass home and its name. Too bad, because it is one of the most enjoyable white wine experiences one can have. The grape’s origins are in Italy where it was called Tramino. Its present day name in German simply means “spiced Tramino.”   And indeed spice, especially baking spice, is a predominant feature of well-made Gewurz. But again, sweetness is not the deal here. It’s fruit, spice, acidity and minerality. Not to mention the wine’s versatility with cheese and food across the board.

The proof lies within the bottle itself. As always with wine, the final verdict is yours and yours alone. Come on in and we’ll taste some things. Fearlessly and, hopefully, with great enjoyment for your palate!

Cheers,

Candy the Winemonger

Wines for whatever weather this is

Well, I the Winemonger did my very best to get super-fun springlike wines on the shelves for the season’s arrival and the season seems reluctant to arrive. Nonetheless, we are drinking the new arrivals with great pleasure.

I’ve also listened to you and tried to reshape the cafe wine list according to your input. It’s very difficult to pick just a few wines for the list; I love every single bottle on my shelves and would offer all of them by the glass if that made business sense. But it doesn’t and that’s it is so important that you keep your comments coming – for both the shelves and the cafe list. Thanks to all of you who have spoken up!

Meanwhile, I’ll be here, looking at the pretty new bottles and caring less and less about the weather!

Cheers,
Candy the Winemonger

Liberal, Organic Baked Goods

We’ve recently begun supporting a super, super cool bakery in Chicago by bringing their sweets and breads into our shop every morning. So here’s Oak Park’s official introduction to Michelle and Vinny Garcia, the talents behind the Bleeding Heart Bakery—touted as the United States’ first certified organic bakery. Michelle stoped in for a tasting a few weeks back and we were blown away by their stuff, so we’ve decided to add it to our repitoire of artisan goods. Plus, check out the Darth Vader cake! They have a bunch of other amazing shots of their work here. The duo will soon be featured on one of those Food Network challenges where people make amazingly obscene creations out of flour and eggs.

Hop Head or Malt Maven?

Malt (malted barley) and hops make up the ying and yang of beer. Malts make your beer wonderfully sweet, while the hops even everything out with their bitter quality. For this month’s BOM (Beer-of-the-Month Club) we assembled six beers that showcase the bready, sweet, toffee notes that malted barley has to offer. Then, to balance out the palate, we chose six more beers that have upped the hop ante. When it’s all said and done, BOM members will have a better idea of whether you swing toward the sweet, or roll with the bitter. Either way, these are 12 dynamite beers from our country’s top craft brewers.

Malt Maven:

Great Lakes Eliot Ness
Capital Wisconsin Amber
Two Brothers Domaine Dupage
Dogfish Head Indian Brown
Bell’s Lager
Founders Dirty Bastard

Hop Head:

Bell’s Pale Ale
Dogfish Head 60-Minute
Bear Republic Racer 5
Two Brothers Bitter End
Lagunitas IPA
Anderson Valley Hop Ottin’

So which are you?

The Most Sincere Form of Flattery?

What is it? Imitation, of course. American craft brewers have become some of the most creative, ingenious brewers on the planet, but let’s not forget where those brewing roots stem from. This month we’ve compiled four of the best Americanized versions of classic beer styles from Germany, England and Belgium. Some are attempts to closely mirror the old-world styles, while others certainly take the basic principles and run the creative gamut.

Great Lakes Dortmunder Gold ~ GERMANY
Victory Prima Pils ~ GERMANY
Two Brothers Ebel’s Weiss ~ GERMANY
Dark Horse Perkulator Coffee Doppelbock ~ GERMANY

Three Floyds Pride & Joy ~ ENGLAND
Anderson Valley ESB ~ ENGLAND
Bell’s Old Ale ~ ENGLAND
Bell’s Best Brown ~ ENGLAND

Unibroue Trois Pistoles ~ BELGIUM
Ommegang Abbey ~ BELGIUM
Victory Golden Monkey ~ BELGIUM
Goose Island Matilda ~ BELGIUM

Questions: Which beer has the most accurate representation of the original style? Which beer strays the furthest from the original style? Do you really care how historically accurate these beers are? Which beer is your favorite, and why?

The Beer-of-the-Month Club member who best answers all of these will receive a beer on the house during your next visit to the bar … so make sure to leave your last name on your comment. Cheers.

Beer Bath?

So …  there’s this style of cheese called Washed-Rind, and it basically means exactly what you probably think it means. The cheesemaker will bathe their cheese in some sort of liquid (brine, beer, wine, cider, etc.), which basically does two things: (1.) Causes a natural rind to grow on the outside of the cheese; (2.) Infuses the cheese with all kinds of interesting, tasty, funky, etc. flavors and aromas. Grayson, from Meadow Creek Dairy in Virginia, is a great example.

Recently, a washed-rind cheese from Jasper Hill Farm in Vermont has received some pretty serious acclaim. And what makes Winnemere even more appealing (to some of us) is that the cheese has traditionally been washed in a lambic (or wild fruit beer) that a neighbor of the cheesemaker homebrewed. Pretty cool, right? New to this year’s batch of Winnemere is the beer it’s bathed in. Mateo Kehler, one of the cheesemakers at Jasper Hill Farm, actually connected with Greg Hall of local Goose Island and began washing the cheese in Goose Island Matilda (Chicago’s version of Orval). We’re hoping to have both Mateo and Greg in our shop late next week for a little tasting of both Winnemere and Matilda … keep an eye out.

Thank You Peggy Notebaert

Any foodie, chef and/or local restaurateur is likely thrilled at the fact that Chicago’s Green City Market will begin operating throughout the winter in 2009. That’s right … you can now pick up local produce and meat year-round by hitting up the Peggy Notebaert Nature Museum (2430 N. Cannon Drive ) on the first and third Saturday of every month, beginning January 17. You can bet your brussels sprouts that our Chef Pivoney will be stocking up the MSCM kitchen’s walk-in twice a month here.