A rotating schedule of free pours will be available next week, and all bottles will be discounted for Italian Wine Week. more ›

Today in restaurant news: Alpana Singh is opening a new wine bar and one of the owners of Fox and Obel denies bouncing paychecks. more ›

MK is selling every bottle of wine in the place at a steep discount and Custom House Tavern is practically giving away one of the best burgers in America. more ›

It's a new year and a new you. If your New Year's resolution is to drink more wine (ours is), here are the tastings taking place in Chicago and surrounding areas this weekend. more ›

Chicago wine lovers shed a few tears this morning as Lettuce Entertain You Wine and Sprits Director Alpana Singh announced her departure from the company. more ›

Rittergut Wine Bar and Social Club may have a mouthful of a name, but it's a great place to stop in for a quiet lunch. more ›

After months of hype, weeks of anticipation and three days of wine and tweeting, Chicago Gourmet 2011 is finally behind us. Despite the rain and the shoe-ruining mud (we're sending your our cleaning bill, Illinois Restaurant Association!) the event was actually pretty good. In fact, Chicago Gourmet was, dare we say, worth the money this year. more ›

A sushi chef's table in Evanston, a mysterious Bell's beer release at Binny's and City Provisions turns one by bringing in the vendors who made it possible. more ›

Hart Davis Hart, a Chicago-based wine auction house, just released it's half-year financial information. We knew wine buyers had money - what we didn't know is that their finances apparently are unaffected by bad economic times. This year, since January, HDH has sold 23 MILLION dollars worth of wine - up 45% from that period last year. Whoa. more ›

All around Chicago, simple pleasures are waiting to be discovered. But bar popcorn? How plebian, you may think. Fine, maybe bar popcorn isn't the pinnacle of culinary achievement. This drinking staple snack comes in all varieties, both good and bad. Sometimes it's stale, sometimes it's too salty, and sometimes it's self-serve and you see someone fail to wash their hands in the bathroom so you just avoid it altogether. But sometimes it's great, and hot, and it adds to your bar-going experience. We recently decided to try the popcorn at West Town's Lush Wine & Spirits, and it falls into the “spectacular bar snack” camp. more ›

We have been inundated with deal-a-day apps lately, to the point where we're pretty much impossible to impress. The field is getting so crowded that the deals are often laughably bad, featuring bars and restaurants we wouldn't wander into if we were already in the neighborhood, let alone go out of our way for. DrinkOwl is a refreshing change - it promises no discounts on its own, but allows users to see all the different drink specials going on, all over the city. Using your GPS location, it will find you beer, wine and cocktail specials close to you - and best of all, you don't have to bring a coupon. more ›

This one is going to be popular with wine lovers and space nerds alike: Lovell's of Lake Forest is hosting a Fattoria Viticcio Wine Dinner this Friday. If the name Lovell sounds familiar, that's because the restaurant is owned by astronaut James Lovell (who is, of course, Tom Hanks' character in the 1995 film Apollo 13). The restaurant displays artifacts from Lovell's time at NASA and from the filming of Apollo 13. It gets even better - the executive chef is Jay Lovell, James Lovell's son. more ›

May is the month for wine-tasting events! The latest in the line-up, Around The World in 80 Sips, hosted by Bottlenotes, will be held this Friday at the Museum of Contemporary Art. Visitors will be able to sample more than 80 different wines from all over the globe, plus cheese and charcuterie. Best of all, Chicagoist readers get a discount! more ›

If you're a wine lover (or a lush) an event is coming next week that you can't pass up. Wine Riot , a tasting event held in the Great Hall at Union Station, is visiting Chicago on May 21! After stops in Los Angeles and Boston, Wine Riot will offer Chicagoans a chance to taste over 250 wines of all varietals and from all over the globe. "Crash Courses" will help teach you about wine in free, 20-minute bursts and, if you're in the mood for some grooves to go with your wine, a DJ will help you get in the mood. The price is just $50 per person. more ›

Winos of Chicagoland, wake up from underneath those park benches and check out our excellent picks for wine events this weekend. As the weather warms and festival season gets underway, there'll be a lot of hoopla about beer, but there are plenty of opportunities for good wine drinking too. more ›

Donald Trump, as part of his strange and meandering plot to take over the world, bought a vineyard in April. Formerly known as Kluge vineyard, the property in Virginia was repossessed by Bank of America in February and bought by Trump in April. What form the vineyard will take under Trump's leadership is unclear - according to Eater, while "he will keep the vineyard's previous owner, Patricia Kluge, on board, Trump's going to change the name of the place. He said, 'It's only Trump. Everything is Trump.'" Restaurant Intelligence Agency asked some local chefs to weigh in with their feelings on Trump wine. The responses? Classic. Steve McDonagh, of Hearty Boys, asked "Is it really from Virginia? I don't believe it. I want to see original certification." more ›

Last month, we posted a gallery of chefs' tattoos, in connection with this month's National Restaurant Association expo in Chicago. The work was gorgeous, and all of it showed off the participants' deep commitment to their craft. Apparently, people really like to show off their tattoos - after that post, we got a ton of submissions from readers and chefs. Here are our favorites, including shots from Naha, Park Grill, Feast and Mana Food Bar, as well as from a couple of our readers. These belong to chefs, pastry chefs, sommeliers and home cooks - and we want to see yours. Chefs and civilians alike, keep the submissions coming and we'll pick our favorites. Email a picture of your food-or-drink-themed tattoo to Anthony@chicagoist.com. more ›

Wine is always a big hit for Mother's Day, which comes on May 8th this year. And yeah, that is soon. We're giving you the heads up so you can buy tickets to an event or have time to noodle about the perfect wine-themed gift for your mom. more ›

694 Wine and Spirits impressed us. It's a simple statement, but as cocktail nerds, any bar that has this much of a commitment to serving craft spirits gets high marks in our book. They also serve exclusive Salumi Cured Meats from Seattle and Benton's Country Bacon bacon, both available in Chicago only at 694. Of course they have a good wine list, but we prefer whiskey with our pork. Plus, any menu that quotes Steve Martin from the Muppet Movie ("Sparkling Muscatel: One of the finest wines of Idaho") has got to be good. Formerly Juice Wine Co., 694 Wine and Spirits has rebranded, redecorated and revamped their food and drink selection. more ›

If you're like us, lunch hour is an endless ground war against monotony first and excessive expense a close second. You've tried everything within the circle around your office, and you're bored. In an attempt to shake up that routine, we've been seeking out tasty lunch spots that won't set you back more than around 15 bucks for you and a buddy. Artisan Cellar, somewhat hidden in plain sight on the first floor of the Merchandise Mart, fits that perfectly. more ›

It's time our Gluten-Free readers got some love from the world of fine dining! Mity Nice, which has undergone a fairly massive renovation and no longer feels like a food court dining room, is hosting a wine dinner curated by Alpana Singh, master sommelier and Director of beverages and spirits for Lettuce Entertain You. On April 12, Mity Nice will serve a four course meal, with wine pairings, all of which will be gluten free. The cost is $55, and the menu is below. more ›

Cityscape Bar is located on the 15th floor of the Holiday Inn Mart Plaza, 350 W. Mart Center Drive. more ›

A friend sent us this, and it made our day. Have you ever read a wine menu and laughed at the language? Since we've spent some time with good Sommeliers, we know that a true wine expert can find thousands of flavors in a beverage, but for many of us, sometimes it seems a bit much. Well, now you can generate your own insane wine tasting notes, right from your desk. That cheap white from last night? "Classic but equally french-oaked Sauvingnon Blanc. Whispers of root beer, sassy seawater and corpulent raw egg. Drink now through never." That french red hiding in the back of your wine rack? "Raw but equally lacking in character Rhone. Shows opium, overdone pixie stick and total absence of Mars bar. Drink now through 2005." Be sure to click "extra silly." more ›

As planned, we visited Logan Square's Provenance Food & Wine to do a little wine tasting and pick up a bottle or two. The Logan Square location has a free wine tasting every Saturday from 3-6, and the Lincoln Square location every Thursday from 6pm-8pm. Even better, the store brings in its vendors to have food tastings: during our visit, Brand BBQ passed out samples of its bourbon-smoked candied pecans, BBQ potato chips, bacon honey butter, and brown sugar bacon caramel ice cream, all of which are available for purchase at Provenance. Provenance has two shops: one in Lincoln Square and one in Logan Square. We visited the shop in Lincoln Square a few years ago, so for this wine tasting we had to go see what the Logan Square shop was all about. more ›

For all of our grape-juice loving readers, there are tons of wine events in and around Chicago this weekend. Check out our picks for each day and make some plans to get out there; it's time to swirl and sip with your fellow Chicago wine enthusiasts. more ›

For one night only, some great Chicago restaurants will be waiving their corkage fee and inviting you to "open that bottle" with them. Have you been saving a good bottle for a special occasion? Bring it in this Saturday, February 26 and pair it with some good food. If you don't have something to bring, all 13 participating restaurants are offering 20% discounts on select bottles of wine or spirits. The complete list is after the jump. more ›

Lovers of rooftop bars, take note. On February 18th, C-View, the bar at the top of the Affinia hotel, will be offering 25% off of all bottled wines. They will be celebrating "National Wine Day," but we'll just be celebrating a good deal. The bar has great views and is a great spot for a date. If you go early in the evening, you may have the bar mostly to yourself, which is perfect for a pre-dinner romantic hour or two. Or, make reservations at C-House for some of Nicole Pederson's fine food and just take the elevator downstairs. Friday the 18th is the first night of Restaurant Week, and C-House has a great looking menu. more ›

Valentine's Day is a contentious holiday. Some love it while others detest it, and these feelings are usually contingent on who accompanies us on any particular February 14th. I asked the Chicagoist foodies to tell me their favorite things about Valentine's Day, defined however they liked. Single, coupled, fine dining or home on the couch - these are our favorite. Caitlin prefers wine to chocolate, Minna is annoyed by American V-Day, John likes trashy heart-shaped candy. If you have a great story, add it in the comments. more ›

For the first in our series of Valentine's Day dinners, we wanted to start with something a little informal. Some of us want to do something interesting and fun, but don't want to drop $200 a person. This year, Valentine's Day is on a Monday. After a full Monday of work, many couples might not be interested in celebrating - we always make a point of doing our valentine's celebration during the preceding weekend. Enter redFLAME more ›

Bin 36, one of our favorite spots, is hosting a particularly comprehensive New Year’s Eve party, and spots are still available. If you already have evening plans, Bin 36 is offering a 4-course early meal, seating from 5:30-7:00, so you can grub up before you head out to your drinking and carousing. The early dinner is $55 per person, a good deal for a meal on New Year’s Eve. more ›