Wednesday, July 1, 2009

A new wine bar in an unexpected place


A few weeks ago I finally made it over to Lincoln Park to check out the much anticipated new location of Whole Foods. I had heard the 100,000+ sq. foot mega-store at 1550 N. Kingsbury St. would be the largest, or 2nd largest Whole Foods in the world so I suppose I shouldn't have been surprised to find a wine & cheese bar right smack in the middle of the store! On that first visit I couldn't quite bring myself to start drinking at noon on a Tuesday (Friday, yes. Thursday, maybe.) It took me awhile to get back, and last night was finally time to check out Da'Vine.


The wine bar:

Da'Vine is a full service wine bar right inside the store. You can pull up to the circular bar from two different sides, one at store level and another a few steps up where you'll find a nice seating area with several 4 or 5 seat tables. Da'Vine focuses on flights with 5 or 6 different offerings between $9 and $12, for that price you get 3 different 2 ounce pours. The flights offered were a good mix of red, white, rose, and sparkling wines. Any wine from a flight is available by the glass in a 4 ounce pour. Additional by the glass options are available that are not part of the flights. A glass will run you between $5 and $9 so it's pretty reasonable by Whole Foods standards. To round it up they had a red and white special of the day for $5 a glass. To help wash down your wines they offer cheese flights and caviar. The bartender running the ship was great, she was happy to let us try a small sample of the wines before we ordered. My only gripe was that both the red and white wines were served too cold, because of that our wines were closed and not showing their full potential upon serving. After a few minutes of warm up they were ready to drink....better to be served too cold than too warm. One great additional tip we learned was that you can pick out any bottle they offer in the store and they'll ring you up right there. Only $3 corkage to drink the bottle at Da'Vine. We saw several groups that brought meals over from the food court area and were enjoying their dinners with some wine.


The wine:


When I saw the $5 red wine special I jumped all over it. "Merkin Vineyards, Chupacabra Caduceus Red Blend. California (Paso Robles), 2006. What made this wine sound interesting to me is that the wine maker is Maynard James Keenan. Fans of the bands Tool and A Perfect Circle will recognize that name, Keenan is the founder and driving force behind those great rock bands. I knew that Keenan was a novice winemaker, he's a guest contributor and blogger for Wine Spectator magazine. This was the first time I had seen one of Keenan's wines so here it goes.


The Chupacabra (Chupacabra in Spanish literally translates to Goat Sucker) is a blend of Cabernet and Syrah. I couldn't find any information on the ratio of Cab to Syrah but based on the taste I would guess it's primarily Syrah. The nose is fragrant with notes of currant and plum. A smooth palate of chocolate, currant, and black fruit, slightly herbal. Medium length and smooth tannins finish it out. The wine is very full bodied. Like most blend wines the shortcomings of each individual varietal is covered up by the others in the mix. The wine was pleasant and can be enjoyed without food. I was a bit surprised by the sale price of $19.99, I was expecting closer to $15. Whole Foods normally sells this bottle for $24.99 so if you do want to try it make sure you pick it up on sale. I really wouldn't recommend it at $25 but would say out of curiosity Keenan's fans would probably get their money's worth at the sale price. As for me I'll probably let Keenan get a few more vintages under his belt as a winemaker before I give him another shot at my $20 or $25.

Next time you find yourself headed toward Weed St. (the restaurants, not VIP's, right?) stop in to Da'Vine to get the evening started. It's also a great way to wrap up a busy North & Sheffield shopping trip...plenty of easy free parking! I highly reccomend stopping by Da'Vine.

Cheers,
Chris




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