In the early days of 2020, just when the reality of Covid was near certain, someone decided to place some wine vines on a rooftop terrace just off of Lincoln Park. Just to see what would happen. That person, being an associate of ours, decided to invite us over to sample the stuff after it had been in the bottle for about a year. This was the only yupfeed officiated wine tasting in which there were no expectations. After all, the notion of tasting wines that had been hastily transplanted for a pandemic era experiment was a unique opportunity. One you’ll hopefully never need to endure. 

Upon opening the wine, we were greeted with an almost Bogulais like aroma, that quickly gave way to one that would best be described as an unholy union of Welch’s grape juice and Hawaiian Punch. The color was a shade below rose. The initial flavor can not be said, in good conscience, to have been much of an improvement. With the flavor being somewhere between concord grape juice and the scent of freshly laid asphalt. In the name of being polite, and knowing that perhaps some air would improve things, we poured it into a decanter with a hope of better times on all of our respective minds, as a round of negronis was made.

An hour was given. While the color and aroma remained the same. The flavor of asphalt lightened, only to give way to an almost medically alcoholic flavor. The type you associate with either cleaning a wound, or shots of vodka at a college bar. A martini was made this time to give it another hour to bloom, though in hindsight that was a waste of time.

 An hour, possibly more passed before we all found the courage to try the wine one more time. Best not to insult a potential investor, we thought. This time, we took the approach that it was not going to get any better, and that perhaps in sipping on it, it would grow on us. Normally, when we write these reviews, the top 3 flavors we describe are the most notable, or the ones that we associate with not being a combination of others. In this case however the flavors of Cherry, Asphalt, and Horse Manure were all that was present. It took about five minutes for us all to come to the conclusion that this was a waste of our time and liver cells. As well as for us all to come to the conclusion that while Cook County is an amazing place to drink wine, it is a terrible place to grow it.