Regional Wine Fighting Its Way Into Chicago

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3 Responses

  1. Richard Buck says:

    My wife, a couple of friends, and I have traveled to several Midwest states to sample wine. Our ‘winery tours’ have included trips to Southern Illinois, Central Missouri, Southeast Missouri, Northern Wisconsin (Door County area), Southern Indiana, Southern Ohio (around Cincinnati), Northern Michigan (Traverse City area), Southwest Missouri, and Kentucky. We have found that Midwest wines are just as good (if not better) and cheaper than California or European wines. It is frustrating that there are not more Midwest wines sold in the Chicago area. (We were all born in Chicago and now live about 30 miles Northwest of Chicago.) We do have a few stores here that sell a limited amount of MW wine. Jewel, Meiers, and Woodmans. We have purchased wines from St. Julian (SE Mich), Leelanau (Traverse City), and St.James (SE Missouri) in these stores. I wish that we could find more.
    The local distributors need to get more Midwest Wines into their stable and push harder for good shelf space. I believe that it will happen eventually. Chicago (basically Cook County) is a very hard area to break into as there are a lot of closely held interests regarding alcohol and who gets to sell it.
    Keep up the good reporting! We really enjoy reading about the local wineries as we have visited many of them.

    • Richard,
      So refreshing to read your comment! We are a distributor focusing on local/regional wines and ciders and we are working very hard to get more local wines on the shelf at retailers and by the glass at restaurants.
      You will find some good local wine selections in the NW ‘burbs at Dobby’s in Palatine, Mariano’s, Sunset Foods and other single retailers. You can visit our website or follow us on facebook to see as we add new sellers.
      Cheers to localpours!
      Kelly Kniewel

  1. October 22, 2013

    […] Why don’t you see much Midwestern wine in Chicago? […]