Upcoming Events
There's quite a bit going on this
summer and fall, so we wanted to highlight some upcoming events for you.
Riedel Stemware
Demonstration, August 14, 1 - 6 pm
Our second Riedel stemware demonstration,
featuring Riesling glasses, will take place Saturday, August 14 at
the store. Come
experience for yourself how a glass designed specifically for Riesling
can enhance the flavors, aromas and enjoyment of the wine itself.
Space is
limited, so come early to ensure your place at the demonstration!
Lisle Smile Days
festival, August 19-22
This annual
festival has been reorganized, with a new planning team, and promises to
be a wonderful weekend. Enjoy music, crafts,
carnival rides, food and drink. We'll host a booth serving wine and
beer throughout the
event. Many other Lisle businesses will be represented.
There's no
charge to attend. Click here for additional
details.
Bordeaux "Seduction"
Contest
Do you love
Bordeaux wines? Do you have a memorable story about how you
discovered Bordeaux wines? If yes, consider entering Bordeaux.com's
"Seduction Awards Contest." Describe your most seductive Bordeaux
moment, and you could win the grand prize, a trip for six to spend a week
touring the chateaux of Bordeaux! For full details, and to enter,
visit www.bordeaux.com.
Entries are due
by December 2004; winners will be announced in January 2005.
Naperville
Wine Festival, Sept 24 - 25
The second annual Naperville Wine Festival will be held the last weekend
of September. We'll again be hosting a booth throughout the event.
Visit
www.napervillewinefestival.com for details.
"Slow Dating" Bordeaux Event
Mark
your calendars now for Saturday October 9th. We're proud to help
present the
first Chicago-area "Slow Dating Event," an incredible evening of fun, ice
breakers, and wine tasting. Stay tuned to our newsletter and website for
more details as the date approaches!
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In this issue:
Summer Sippin'
Cellar Master: Aug 19
Ladies Night Out: Sept 13
Lisle Smile Days
Weekend Tastings
Store Hours
Legal Notice on Ordering Wine
Store Location
We are located in downtown Lisle at the southwest corner of Burlington
Ave. & Main St.
Extra parking is available behind our building.
Hours of Operation
Mon - Sat 10 am - 8 pm
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Feature Article
Summer
Sippin'
Full-scale summer in
Chicagoland is nothing short of inspiring, particularly if you recall what
February in Chicagoland was like. Chicagoans embrace the warm weather with
boundless enthusiasm, and the memories of Fourth of July fireworks are
rekindled in the red glare of oversaturated barbecue briquettes igniting
in the evening twilight.
If
you’re like most of us, summer brings with it a preference for cooking
outdoors (or maybe not cooking at all) in an effort to keep the heat and
humidity at bay. The next step, of course, is choosing a beverage to keep
you refreshed and complement your summer menus.
Beer, lemonade and iced tea are popular choices for summer sipping, but
for those of you who associate good food, whether served fireside or al
fresco, with good wine, we’d like to suggest some intriguing options to
complement your summer menus.
Summer’s a great time to befriend a new white wine or two. Riesling is an
obvious choice, with a delightful array of wines to choose from. Whether
you prefer it dry (look for wines from Alsace or Australia), or sweet (try
one of our many German offerings), a nicely chilled Riesling offers a
lovely respite from the heat. The 2001 German Rieslings are being lauded
as the best of the last 30 years, and the 2001 Reichsgraff von
Kesselstatt Kasler Nies’Chien is a worthy representative of the
vintage, bursting with apricot, passion fruit and slate aromas and flavors
in an elegantly structured wine awarded 92 points by Wine Spectator. Serve
it as an aperitif on the patio, or pair it with spicy Asian foods or
shellfish.
At
the dry side of the spectrum, the 2002 Gruner Veltliner from Austria’s
Nigl winery offers a refreshing balance of citrus fruit and piquant
acidity that earned 89 points from Wine Spectator. If Gruner Veltliner
hasn’t made it across your radar screen yet, it’s time to take notice.
German wine importer and afficionado Terry Thiese calls “GrüVe” “the last
of the great European white-wine grapes: unique, adaptable, food-loving
and delicious” and recommends pairing it with, well, nearly anything, just
so long as you try it. It holds its own against notorious wine-killing
foods like artichokes and asparagus, and pairs equally well with garlic-y
shrimp, escargots or Endive Stuffed with Goat Cheese and Walnuts.
One
of Jack Thew’s all-time favorite summer whites is Kuntz-Bas’ Pinot
Blanc, a classic white table wine from the Alsatian region of France.
Refreshing, with crisp acidity and generous apple and citrus flavors, it’s
his wine of choice when the menu calls for Chicken with Cornell Sauce,
a tangy, flavorful barbecue sauce low in sugar (and thus not prone to
flaming out on the grill).
Summer’s a great time to explore some lighter reds, as well. Give your
old-vine cuvees and estate bottlings the benefit of some time in the
cellar, and opt for less-specific appellations (for example, “California”
vs. “X estate”) and simpler wines. Georges DuBoeuf offers quite a
few very satisfying choices, among them the 2002 “Fleurie” Gamay
Beaujolais (awarded 88 points by Wine Spectator) and the 2002 DuBoeuf
Syrah. The Beaujolais, well-balanced, medium bodied and evocative of red
fruits and cherries, is every bit as appealing as the flowers on the
label, and lends a note of sophistication to cold roast beef. The Syrah,
more restrained than its Aussie cousins, is delicious with BBQ Beef or
slow-grilled brisket, and it comes in denim. Now that’s a summer
wine!
Rosé
is another appealing, though often overlooked, choice for summer sipping.
A far cry from the insipid white zinfandels that flooded the market in the
80’s, fine Rosé wines are enjoying a well-deserved resurgence in
popularity. You can find a Rosé to complement almost any dish, from
seafood and pasta to red meats. Chateau de Champteloup’s 2002
Cabernet D’Anjou is typical of the dry, spicy Rosé wines coming out of
France’s Loire Valley. Made from Cabernet Sauvignon and Cabernet Franc
grapes, its pretty blush color results from a process called saignée,
which involves careful control of the amount of time the crushed grapes
spend in contact with their skins. Deep red Sauvignon grapes require a few
days’ maceration at most to yield Rosé wines that delight the eye and the
palate alike. It’s a well-structured, refreshing change of pace with ham,
shellfish, cheese and salads.
Finally, of course, there’s California Zinfandel, the classic companion to
red meat seared on the grill. Light? Hardly. But sometimes only a Zin will
do. Both Rosenblum and Ravenswood wineries produce
outstanding wines from America’s signature grape, but the price of a
highly rated California Zinfandel might discourage you from opening one to
accompany Tuesday’s burgers-on-the-grill. A noteworthy alternative is
Santa Barbara Winery’s “ZCS”, a blend of Zin, Carignane and Sangiovese
that’s as nice to your wallet as it is to your palate. The proportions may
vary a bit from year to year depending on the character of the grapes
harvested for this blend, but the quality is consistent: smooth,
well-structured and delicious. It’s the perfect patio companion, but
you’re still in charge of minding the grill. Easy on the lighter fluid,
now.
Chicken with Cornell
Sauce
This is vinegar based and
not sweet and does not burn. The original recipe, which called for 4T
salt, was devised sometime in the early 50's at the Farm Home Extension of
Cornell College. It's finger-licking good.
·
2 cups vinegar
·
1 cup oil
·
1 egg
·
1 Tablespoon Poultry Seasoning
·
3 Tablespoons salt (or to taste)
·
Pepper to taste
Put
Ingredients into a blender and blend until smooth. Marinate the chicken
in the sauce 1-2 hours or overnight. Grill over medium heat, turning and
basting often. This is flavorful cooked in the oven, but it lacks the
crispy charcoal flavor.
Endive
Stuffed with Goat Cheese and Walnuts
(serves 8)
From: Cooking Light
1/3 c coarsely chopped
walnuts
2 T. honey, divided
¼ c. balsamic vinegar
3 T. Orange Juice
16 Belgian endive leaves
(about 3 heads)
16 small orange sections
(clementines work very well if they’re available)
1/3 c. pre-crumbled goat
cheese
1 T. minced fresh chives
¼ t. cracked black pepper
Preheat oven to 350.
Combine walnuts and 1 T. honey, spread on a baking sheet coated with
cooking spray and bake 10 min, stirring after 5 min.
Combine 1 T. honey,
vinegar and orange juice in a small saucepan. Bring to a boil and cook
until reduced to 3 T. (about 5 min.)
Fill each endive leaf
with 1 t. goat cheese, 1 orange section and 1 t. walnuts and arrange on a
plate. Drizzle dressing evenly over leaves and sprinkle with chives and
black pepper.
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About
Our Mailing List
The mailing list for this newsletter was gleaned from the personal email
archives of Wine Expressions' owners and from direct requests received
from our customers.
We hope you enjoy the newsletter and decide to remain on our distribution
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By the way, we never share your email or address information with anyone
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Schedule
of Events
We look forward
to seeing you soon at our events:
Prairie Sampling:
Friday, Aug 13
4 - 6:30 pm &
Saturday, Aug 14 1 - 6:30 pm Ravinia Classics
Friday, Aug 20
4 - 6:30 pm &
Saturday, Aug 21 1 - 6:30 pm Wines from Argentina
Friday, Aug 27
4 - 6:30 pm &
Saturday, Aug 28 1 - 6:30 pm Wines from Tuscany
Friday, Sept 3
4 - 6:30 pm Bordeaux Night
Saturday, Sept 4 1 - 6:30 pm Wines from Southern France
back
to top) Cellar
Master: August 19
We're celebrating summer with our August Cellar Master. Join us to
experience "Cool, Juicy and Seductive: Wines for Summertime" on
Thursday August 19th.
The evening includes educational
materials, a flight of nine wines paired to gourmet food samplers.
Call for reservations: 630.435.9463. The deadline to purchase
tickets is Tuesday August 17.
Thursday, August
19th, 6:30 pm
Cellar Master Series - Wines for Summertime
$30 per person
Call for Reservations: 630.435.9463
or 888.656.9463
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Lisle
Smile Days Festival
This summer festival runs
Thursday, August 19 through Sunday, August 22 in downtown Lisle.
Enjoy a variety of music, a street fair featuring Lisle businesses,
crafts, and a large carnival.
On Saturday, August 21 from 12 - 8
pm you can tour the Lewis & Clark Mobile Interpretive Center, a mobile
exhibit that's been touring Illinois to tell the story of the Lewis &
Clark Expedition.
Various bands will play Friday
from 5 - 10:30 pm and Saturday from
1 - 10:30 pm.
Admission is free. Times
are:
Thursday, Aug 19, 6 - 10 pm (carnival only)
Friday, Aug 20, 12 - 11
pm
Saturday, Aug 21, 9 am - 11 pm
Sunday, Aug 22, 3 - 7 pm
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