March 4th, 2010
Rock the vote…
LUSH has been nominated as one of the best wine shops in the city. Please excuse us while we fan ourselves and try to remain calm…eeeeee! So exciting. Please share your love and support of all things LUSH by voting. The TimeOut Chicago 2010 EatOut Awards are about indulging in the good stuff...food and booze, with a close pulse on the city and what is brand spanking new or established and still performing wonders peddling deliciousness. Vote your most bestest favorite restaurant, chefs, bartender, blogger…and wine shop! We heart you! www.timeoutchicago.com/eatoutawards
OR
TEXT ‘Wine 1′ to 46786.
Tags: Beer, Chicago, eatout awards, lush wine and spirits, timeout chicago, vote, Wine
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March 4th, 2010
by Erin Drain
MINI-GEEK: Verticals? For serious geeks, there are a few bottles out there in the world that serve as holy grails for collectors: the Lafites and Latours and Cheval-Blancs of the world; Sassicaia, Opus One, Screaming Eagle; Sea Smoke Pinot, anything coming in magnum form, certainly, and hell, even weird whites from Baumard, Dagueneau, and their ilk. People who have access to these wines are very lucky, indeed, and their friends are luckier still if the bottle owner wants to share. Scenes from The Billionaire’s Vinegar come to mind, where some of the world’s wealthiest and richest wine collectors come together for several days and work through verticals of the wine, meaning they drink multiple vintages, in order, of the same wine. Truly a great learning experience, drinking through multiple vintages of one wine from one producer teaches the drinker about the subtle–and not subtle!– differences that one year’s varying meteorological activity can make on what is, essentially, the same agricultural product. Events like the California wildfires of 2008 lend a certain smokiness to some wines that was not present in 2007, and so on. Also, trying older vintages of a wine will let the drinker understand more about the aging process of specific varietals, not just the individual bottling.
We Lushies love partaking in vertical tastings where possible, and we don’t limit it to just wine. We’ve been known to throw big parties celebrating the many vintages of great beers, like Goose Island’s Bourbon County Stout [we still have some of the 2006 vintage!--ed.] and, among our staff and friends, the absolutely insane Three Floyd’s Dark Lord. Lushie Erin has a bottle of the 2005 Dark Lord stashed away in her cellar, to be unveiled soon with Lushie Brent during a completely ridiculous vertical tasting. So if you can keep those thirsty paws patient, stash away a bottle or two of your favorite wine or beer for a few years in a row, and get your learnin’ on. Slurp.
Tags: Baumard, billionaire's vinegar, Bourbon County Stout, cheval-blanc, dagueneau, dark lord, erin, Goose Island, lafite, latour, lush wine, opus one, sassicaia, screaming eagle, sea smoke, Three Floyd's
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February 25th, 2010
SPECIAL ANNOUNCEMENTS
Rock the vote…
LUSH has been nominated as one of the best wine shops in the city. Please excuse us while we fan ourselves and try to remain calm…eeeeee! So exciting. Please share your love and support of all things LUSH by voting. The TimeOut Chicago 2010 EatOut Awards are about indulging in the good stuff...food and booze, with a close pulse on the city and what is brand spanking new or established and still performing wonders peddling deliciousness. Vote your most bestest favorite restaurant, chefs, bartender, blogger…and wine shop! We heart you! http://chicago.timeout.com/
Read the rest of this entry »
Tags: Beer, classic cocktails, Dark Lord Day, eat out awards, erin, Forlorn Hope, Jane, Julian Van Winkle, kelly, Matthew Rorick, New Glarus, Rachel, School of LUSH, scotch 101, stone, Three Floyd's, timeout chicago
Posted in Uncategorized | No Comments »
February 25th, 2010
Totally geeky…
If you are into it, following the biodynamic calendar may help your booze taste better. The calendar was actually created to help guide planting, sowing, and such…but, it applies to wine flavors, too! [Mr. Steiner developed and shared the principles of biodynamic farming, you can Google him and get the full run down...kinda like extra organic with a side of the mystical...but basically all about 'living' soils and a truly sustainable approach to farming].
Apparently, drinking on a ‘root’ or ‘leaf’ day is not ideal to show off the assests of the wine. Brings out the dirty, earthy funk. But, to highlight the juice, do drink on a ‘fruit’ or ‘flower’ day, as the deliciousness of the wine is at the forefront and ready to shine. You can find a fairly concise explanation here and a link to get a calendar…http://stellanatura.com/use.html. LUSH suggests putting it to the test. Practice, study, and conduct research. SIP on each type of day. Same wine. Same situation. Different bottle, duh. Let us know what you think! Of course, practical matters take precendence…like food pairing and the company and such. And, if you want to drink, just do. Drink what you like when you want.
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Tags: biodynamics, farming, flower, fruit, leaf, lush wine, Rachel, root, rudolf steiner, Wine
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February 15th, 2010
by Cara
The first weekend in February, I flew down to Atlanta to celebrate the marriage of a very kind, beautiful couple. I’ll detail my favorite food & drink from the weekend and you’ll probably think I stayed a week. Read the rest of this entry »
Tags: cara, Hendricks, Owen Roe, Sweetwater Brewing, syrah
Posted in Beer, Travel, What we are eating, What we are thinking, What we're drinking | No Comments »
February 4th, 2010
So, a few months later and I still have yet to find a Ploussard in Chicago to drink, much less sell. Alas. I have hope, though.
Now, however, I am expanding my obsession and thirst to the real quirky wine of Jura…Vin Jaune. Read the rest of this entry »
Tags: France, Jura, lush wine, Rachel, Savagnin, Sherry, vin jaune, voile, yeast
Posted in Geek, What we are thinking | No Comments »
January 27th, 2010
Ten Questions With…
Jane Lopes
Manager, LUSH Roscoe Village
A native of sunny California, Jane grew up virtually surrounded by the vineyards of the Bay Area and exposed to the culture of eating, drinking, and breathing wine earlier in life than many of the Lushies, which may help to explain her deep-seated passion for all things fermented. The moment she walked into the shop for an interview, decked out with electric orange, rubber robot earrings dangling beneath her flaming locks, we knew she was meant for LUSH. In the precious few moments when not running the show as manager and wine buyer at LUSH in Roscoe Village, Jane’s [also tall & redheaded] doppelganger can be found slangin’ classic cocktails at the Violet Hour one night each week. Ms. Jane has an ingrained knack for discerning obscure nuances and flavors, as well as a gift for creating amazingly quirky flavor combinations and innovative, classically inspired cocktail recipes. Like both Rachel and Erin, curiously enough, Jane is also a University of Chicago graduate, rounding out the three stores’ trifecta of innate, total geekiness. Word on the street is that she harbors a literary nerd deep within, and may or may not have been a notoriously clever Shakespeare scholar while in school. True to her alma mater, Jane will happily get down and dirty and all educational with you over whatever wine or spirit about which your little heart desires to learn. Read the rest of this entry »
Tags: Alinea, andrew jefford, Avec, Baumard, bongran vire clesse, California, Chenin Blanc, Clos de Goisses, cornelissen, crush wine, dave wondrich, Didier Dagueneau, elena walch, elmer t. lee, Eric Asimov, Home Bistro, Hot Doug's, Jane, Jeffery Steingarten, Lettie Teague, Lula, lush wine, macle, Movia, paillard, paixar, Pappy Van Winkle Rye, Publican, rootstock, Roscoe Village, schiopetto, Sepia, taxim, Terragusto, Thackery, theater, university of chicago, Urban Belly, Violet Hour, whistler, xoco
Posted in Current Events, Geek, Interviews, What we are eating, What we are thinking, What we're drinking | No Comments »
January 25th, 2010
Wow, only take 6, huh? Sorry everyone, there are plenty of things that I’ve hearted in the past few months, I just haven’t written about them I suppose. Either way, here I am, falling madly in love with this wine. It’s the 2006 Melusine Lyra Gruner Veltliner from winemaker Marion Ebner. I mean, really, this is gruner? Heck yeah!
Let’s being with the story of the winemaker Marion Ebner. She grew up in Vienna and knew early on that she was interested in winemaking. She enrolled in school just for that - which I should mention is not that common. Most winemakers in Austria are born in in to the wine business…and most are guys. When she was 16, she landed an internship with a great winery in Austria and worked under winemaker Fritz Wieninger (whose wines are also delicious, may I add). She went on to work in a wine shop (awesome) and the the marketing side of wine while gathering some resources. She made a deal to cultivate some grapes in the Kamptal region and began producing the first small amount of the wonderful Melusine. The Melusine is not like other Gruner Veltliners - it’s a lot fuller bodied and has so much complexity, you’ll probably be thinking about it still 45 minutes after you taste it. The press quickly caught on to this small production wine, and with each vintage she gained more and more respect.
Now I’m sitting here drinking, er, tasting, the ‘06 which is just utterly fantastic. As I mentioned before, it’s a fuller bodied gruner that sees some oak (French). I could just smell this wine all day long. If Melusine was made in to a perfume, that would be my scent. The nose is full of pineapple, citrus and white stone fruit (sweet apples anyone?). The palate is lush and complex with fresh fruit and a creaminess that is balanced by a beautiful acidity.
Only 222 bottles were brought in to the US and if I had the funds, I’d be buying a lot of this. However, lucky for you, we still have a little left…and if you get to West Town in the next day or so, we’ll still have some open to taste.
Tags: austria, Chicago Avenue, Gruner Veltliner, Lush, marion ebner, melusine lyra, West Town
Posted in Our Favorite Things, What we are thinking, What we're drinking | No Comments »
January 21st, 2010
[Sometimes, us Lushes do some serious R&D...working super hard and all. This lovely piece of writing was crafted over Manhattans at the Twisted Spoke. Erin and Kelly busted ass while Shawn mixed up the cocktails. Enjoy!]
Wine Geek: Field Trip!
New York…what a wonderfully interesting place to be, be seen, and most importantly, to eat and drink! So many exciting places and things to try, I could hardly manage 5 days there. I will try my best to recount the best things that I ate and drank while there, but time went by in a New york minute - and please excuse my brain for any fuzziness, it just means I was having fun!
Day 1: After traveling, I really just wanted a nice beer to celebrate the trip, so my friend and I stopped in a brewpub in Union Square called Heartland Brewry. It’s a fun place to stop and have some brews not found here in the great midwest. The oatmeal stout was a touch too sweet for my taste, but the Bavarian black lagar was just what I wanted. Medium bodied with a nice coffee note, malty but not too sweet…hello New York!
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Tags: amaro, Chicago, death and company, dos toros, East Village, erin, heartland brewry, hot dogs, kelly, lombardi's pizza, lush wine, pizza, tacos, terroir wine bar, Twisted Spoke, union square, West Town
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January 13th, 2010
This Christmas, the three LUSH managers plus our intrepid Employee of the Year[s], Kelly, all decided that in lieu of buying one another gifts, we would spend the money instead on getting together, the four of us, for a shared meal.
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Tags: 1983, bridgeport, BYOB, han 202, spatlese riesling
Posted in BYOB, Geek, Our Favorite Things, Uncategorized, What we are eating, What we are thinking, What we're drinking | No Comments »
