Eric's Red, 2005

Mackinaw is a beautiful 45min drive away and the Mackinaw Valley Vineyard has been one of our fave places to go and enjoy some wine and a picnic over the last couple summers. This past weekend they had a grand opening of their new pavilion and to do so hosted a Music and International Beer and Wine Festival. You pay 10 bucks to get in, get a free glass, 5 free tastings of international wines and beers, enjoy a gorgeous Sunday afternoon, and listen to great live music. We weren't sure if we were going to go at first but the day was too beautiful to not go. We got there around mid afternoon tasted some wines, walked in the grapes, took some holga pics. Chris found a couple of tasty beers we hadn't tried before. And I tasted several wines but when I'm at the Mackinaw winery, their Eric's Red always seems to be my favorite. So I bought a glass their to enjoy the music with and then got a bottle to go.
Their wine's are tend to be named after their kids. It is a semi sweet red although it's up on their dry list. It's hard to do a dry wine in Illinois. But it's just the right amount of sweet. It works great with a light meal like cheese and crackers or a heavy meal of pasta or steak. I've had quite a few of these bottles between all our visits to the vineyard. And am always looking forward to more!

Vignoles

One of the last bottles to open from the So. IL trip was our favorite of the entire trip. We actually purchased two of these and had an entire bottle while down there on the deck above a lake w/ the vines just beyond while listening to live music and being attacked by cheese craving cats. Yes there was a cheese craving cat there and it was determined.
I brought this bottle up to Chicago for Mom's birthday and we enjoyed it on her deck, w/ Gram, while taking pictures of non attacking birds. It was just as good as I was building it up to be in my head.
The vignoles grape is a hybrid grape made from a cross between Seibel and Pinot de corton. The wine is light and fruity and yet not sweet at all. It didn't have the dry oaky after flavor either. I can drink like juice but it doesn't really taste like juice. It's a beautiful champagne color that was gorgeous in the sun. I took it's picture a lot. This is a must try if you are at StarView and if you're in So. IL you must try StarView!
While up in Chi-town we stopped by World Market to diversify our wine stock. So soon we'll get out of the IL wines and start trying new flavors from all over.

Misterioso, Blue Sky Vineyards

We visited Blue Sky vineyards on our trip to southern Illinois. We weren't there long and didn't do an extravagant tasting. It was a warm day and this was the first wine both Pratt and I tasted. We liked it and each bought a glass and then after that a bottle. Blue Sky is a really neat winery, it's different than the rest in the area in that it's more trendy and bar like. The place fills up quickly, sells beer as well as wine, college kids are behind the bar, and they're open later. And it's beautiful. It is completely painted and decorated with a Tuscon atmosphere, the grounds outside are gorgeous and comfortable in warm weather. It's a really nice place to visit.

I'd forgotten about Misterioso until the other day while digging through my wine box. The wine rack is still not fixed so my wine is all in a box. I thought about opening it last night when I was thinking white, but I remembered this being sweet and that didn't sound good. Today was a bit warmer outside and after a nice sushi dinner I opened up Misterioso. It's a blush, which I'd forgotten, and it's sweet. Sweeter than my normal taste, but it doesn't' seem to be bothering me, I'm on my second glass. I'm not sure I would buy this again unless I was actually at the winery. There was something about the atmosphere and fun we were having that made it perfect. And right now it could be the storm rolling in, or the sushi in me, or just a warm day that's making it perfect now.

Wiener Dog White

Some times it's all in the name. That's what sold me on this bottle, that and I was already buying a bunch from Alto anyway. The label does the name justice and I bought it with the intentions of sharing the fun w/ friends on a warm spring day.

Yesterday was the perfect day. Misty and Trina came over to watch Lost and it was our first real 60 something day with the sun out. A perfect day for some wiener dog wine. This wine was more of an impulse buy, an ok wine compared to the reds we were sampling at Alto. For a semi sweet Illinois wine this was pretty good. It is a blend of three Illinois grapes, Vignoles, Villard, and Chardonel. It has the fruity flavors but without the over whelming sweet, and yet it lacks the oaky dryness of a true dry white wine.

Thumbs up to this wine and it's fun label. Too bad they don't have any fat cat reds!

2003 Rosso Classico

There are times when the world is turned completely upside down and wine isn't the right drink of choice. Those are the times where martinis taste the best. Then there are days when the house is quite and my mind is anything but. That's when a glass of wine is the remedy of choice.

I choose a bottle from Alto Vineyards down on the Shawnee Hills wine trail. The Rosso Classico is a blend of their two driest wines, the Chancellor and the Chambourcin. It has a rich berry flavor with a nice dry kick at the end. Smooth in the beginning and the appropriate bite after you've swallowed. A wonderful wine that goes well with food or by itself.

2007 Chardonel

Last night we celebrated Chris's website going live, and to do that I cooked up a lobster dinner and we opened up a bottle of wine from our recent adventure.

The wine is the 2007 Chardonel from the StarView vineyard on the Shawnee Hills wine trail. As said before StarView was one of our faves. Even the labels, which were designed by a local artist were our favorites!

Chardonel is a dry white wine similar to a nice chardonnay, although it doesn't have that dry after bite to it. That's because the Chardonel grape is a hybrid of the chardonnay grape and a grape called the seyval. Seyval grapes are also grown in the So IL region.

We devoured this bottle with our dinner and supplemented with another wine that was already open and a few weeks old. I won't review that one b/c I think it was past it's prime. The Chardonel was delicious, it was dry enough for the chilly weather and yet springy enough that it was hard not to guzzle. I'd buy this again, and recommend dry white wine lovers to at least taste it if they're near the winery.

Shawnee Hills Wine Trail

Last weekend Chris and our friend CP rented a cabin in southern Illinois with the intention of hiking and hitting up the Shawnee Hills wine trail. Chris and I were down there last year and stopped by two of the wineries and had a blast. This year we were ready to taste some wine.

Illinois wines tend to be very sweet. We can't grow the same grapes that grow in California and other prime wine areas. So vineyards make do with what will grow. There are some grapes, the Chambourcin, and the Norton grapes that will grow in IL. And when a vineyard knows what it's doing great dry wines can be created. I prefer the Chambourcin wines to the Nortons. The Norton wines are very strong, bold, and dry. They would be lovely with a steak dinner. Chambourcins done well are smoother than the Norton's that I've tried. They still have a nice bold, fruity, dry flavor, just not as much bite to it. This weekend I sampled some combination wines of the two that were really wonderful as well.

There are some great wineries in southern Illinois and I found that the ones I liked it wasn't just good wine, they had great service as well. It made a huge difference when the bartender was friendly, accommodating, and really knew their wines. CP is a sweet wine drinker where as I'm a dry...if the bartender could wait on us both and recommend separates to us both it was really a good place. Two places turned out to be our faves, SkyView vineyard and Alto vineyards. Both had quality bartenders, glorious wines, a comfortable atmosphere, and didn't charge for tastings! All in all we tasted at 8 wineries, purchased 12 bottles each, each brought home 10 bottles, with for me 7 bought from our two favorite places.

My wine racks are now stocked. I'll have plenty to review over the next few weeks. And I'm really looking forward to enjoying some of the wines that I only just got a taste of over the weekend. And no I didn't just buy dry reds. I did really well mixing it up with some semi sweet whites for the upcoming spring nights.

Village Vitner Zin

A couple weekends ago our friends Jon and Theresa came to visit. Theresa is on her way to becoming quite the wino herself and found the Village Vitner, a small winery in Carpentersville Illinois. I believe she has even joined the wine club. She brought their old vine Zin down for us to sample and enjoy.

I'd never heard of old vine Zin's in Illinois, and was surprised by it's flavor. It's definitely not a Cali Zin, but not in a bad way. It had a very deep smokey flavor to it, something I'd never tasted before in a wine. At first it was just different and odd. It made me kinda think about it. But it was good, would have been really great with food, like a roast or some sort of meat.

This would be an interesting place to stop by to sample the rest of their wines.