Wine Discount Center’s “Taste of Spain” – 1/16 Wed.

I started working part time at the Wine Discount Center on Elston last November. As a long time wine collector, I thought it would be a great experience to see firsthand what goes on from the other side. The Wine Discount Center was the only place I considered working because of their sincere interest in customer service as well as offering a thoughtful selection of wines.

Since working there, one of the pleasures of the job has been the various wine tastings they host. Every Saturday afternoon, the WDC will open about a dozen various wines, all for the low, low price of nothing. They also have something called a “first look” tasting the first Wednesday of every month which serves up a wide range of newly offered vinos (about 30-35) for $10. These are fantastic tastings for the beginner or wine maven alike. Recently, they’ve done various thematic wine/food tastings such as Syrahs paired with BBQ or fruit paired with compatible wines.

On January 16th (Wednesday), the Wine Discount Center will be doing a “Taste of Spain”, with a beautiful cross section of regional Spanish wines from Rioja and Ribera del Duero as well as tastes from lesser known areas like Jumilla, Yecla, Montsant, and Bierzo. Wines such as Muga (Rioja), Felix Callejo (Ribera del Duero), Acustic (Montsant), Hacienda Monasterio (Ribera del Duero), Artadi (Rioja), and El Nido (Jumilla) will be amongst many others that will be poured.

The wines will be accompanied by various Iberian cheeses along with some delectable Spanish jamons.

The cost is $35 and will run from 7:30-9:00. A portion of those funds will go to the Respiratory Health Association of Chicago.

Hope to see you there.

PIGMON

Wine Discount Center
1826 N. Elston Avenue, Chicago
(773)489-3454

Thanks for posting about this - it sounds great. I'll be there with my fiance and a friend.

I attended this event with some friends who are Spanish wine enthusiasts, and we enjoyed ourselves immensely. Although I cannot claim any wine expertise, my impression of this tasting was that, as in a well-curated exhibition of art, the 35 wines were grouped in a thoughtful way that enhanced the appreciation of their characteristics.

My favorites emerged from 3 dissimilar categories. I enjoyed the big, fruit- forward wine that seemed to be a favorite among the tasters that night, the 2004 Zamora "Cenit." Nostalgia junkie that I am, I found the taste of Spain circa 1975 in a well-priced tempranillo blend, the 2004 Montsant Bodegas Vendrell Rived "L'Alleu," which rivalled wines priced at more than twice as much. Although, fortunately for all concerned, I experienced no reprise of the quail-egg-ravioli reaction, my one taste of the Sierra Pedro Ximenez Viejisimo sherry was immensely satisfying, unique, and worth the trouble and expense of a special order.

Lest I be branded a shill, let me disavow any connection to the Wine Discount Center (other than being a friend to PIGMON and a happy WDC customer.)

For those who may be interested, the next tasting is scheduled for Wednesday February 6th 6:30-8:00. Call for details - I am not certain of the proposed theme, if any.

Wine Discount Center
1826 N. Elston
(773)489-3454

I had never been to WDC prior to this event, and I'm glad the event drew me in. The store has a terrific mix of interesting wines at reasonable prices, and the staff seems incredibly friendly and quite knowledgeable. I'll be back.

As for the event itself, my take wasn't as positive. For one thing, most of these Spanish wines - especially the expensive ones - were not really to my liking. Many were monstrously big, fruit-forward wines with high alcohol content. After tasting 3 or 4 , my palette was dead and everything started tasting the same. Also, the tables seemed to be organized by whatever that particular distributor happened to have, so that any given table would have 5-6 wines ranging from light whites to humongous reds. These logistics made it necessary to keep alternating between light whites and big reds instead of having a more natural progression of light to big throughout the evening. The place was too crowded to just sample the whites at each table, then go back for the reds. Once you carved out space at a tasting table, you needed to taste everything you wanted to taste at that time, because it wasn't likely that you'd be able to get back to that same table.

While the WDC staff was great throughout the night, the same cannot be said of some of the distributors who manned the tasting tables. One was blatantly rude, as evidenced by her biting "So says you" retort when a patron politely suggested that one of her very expensive old reds had oxidized. "I haven't heard anyone else complain," she rather nastily said, at which point about 6 other people jumped in to say that they were hoping someone else would speak up, because they too thought the wine was seriously off. Near the end of the evening, when a patron approached another distributor's table, she asked to taste a certain wine and was told "we've run out of that." When the patron pointed at an unopened bottle, the distributor said "yeah, but we're not going to open a brand new bottle this late in the evening." Granted, some of these wines were expensive, but that patron had paid just like everyone else, and the event was not over. Open the bleapin bottle for her!

I would absolutely echo Josephine's praise of the Pedro Ximenez viejisimo. The intense nuttiness was great on its own, but it really had me longing for just a few slices of pata negra.

So, all in all I'm glad I attended and I'll definitely be back to the store. But probably not to another of these tastings.

As of Oct. 1, Wine Discount Center will become Vin Chicago, says Peter Schwarzbach, owner of the independent four-store chain.

http://www.chicagobusiness.com/article/ ... in-chicago

Not sure if there is another thread for Vin/WDC, but I've really enjoyed going to the Elston location. They helped me pair wines not only for a trip to Goosefoot some months back, but also for a recent Italian dinner for 8. Most recently, I had a really great chat with Max, one of their employees. He stopped to take a look at my cart and then made some suggestions on wines, ones that I'm sure I would've passed up otherwise.

At this point, we purchase nearly all of our wine there, as they seem to offer an excellent value. The only problem is that I am seeing the average purchase price of our bottles slowly rise, as we discover more interesting wines.