Booze Muse

Koval Distillery will hold its first mixology contest on Saturday, November 28. Taking place at 7pm at Binny’s Beverage Depot in the South Loop, contestants will go head to head and create an on-the-spot, original cocktail to be judged by a panel of four. “We’re looking to find some great upcoming mixologists that we can collaborate with in the future,” says co-owner Sonat Birnecker Hart. Koval Distillery is a family-owned business, boasting high-end, all-organic grain spirits and kosher products. “There aren’t that many small family-owned distilleries anymore; they were all wiped out during prohibition,” says Hart. “We make everything here from scratch, and it’s all organic and kosher. It’s important to build sustainable agriculture.”

By Michael Nagrant

There may be no better time in our history to hit the bottle. Certainly we are not lacking for motivation, what with all the layoffs, pay reductions, bankruptcies and mortgage adjustments. But, more importantly, even with thinner wallets, because of the over-production of wine, the growth in negociants (folks who often capitalize on that over-production by buying great wines for a song and selling them for a comparably low price at retail), and increases in manufacturing efficiencies, we’ve never had greater opportunity to buy relatively low-priced wine.

Of course, many wineries have capitalized on this idea not by offering great wines, but by saturating the market with a ridiculous amount of swill that forces us to sift through an ever-growing supply of junk to find anything good. I don’t know about you, but my track record for finding really good wines at a discount retailers has been a very hit-or-miss proposition, with a lot more misses.

I know, I know. You’re ready to smack me in the back of a head with a case of Two Buck Chuck. I’m not saying there’s not a lot of drinkable stuff out there, but I’m talking about the grapes that really stand out, the kind of pour you dream about and rush back to buy a case of. Read the rest of this entry »

Lucio Matricardi wants you to know that there’s more to Sicily than Mafiosi, mountains and red-sauced pastas. “Everyone knows Sicily, but no one knows about Sicilian wine,” says Matricardi, winemaker for Feudo Arancio, in the Sicilian province of Agrigento.

Despite a centuries-old winemaking tradition and an impressive amount of land under vine, much of the island’s production stays in Italy. Quality is also an issue: Less than ten percent is certified DOC (short for Denominazione Origine Controllata), a designation earned by adhering to specific production standards.

But that’s been changing thanks in part to new investors in the region who are bringing new takes on wine-making and wine-marketing—including the six-year-old Feudo Arancio. Belinda Chang, a former Charlie Trotter sommelier who now directs wine and spirits for Cenitare Group, says that most of the Sicilian wines she sees are the products of these recent investments, “so there is definitely a very clean, modern winemaking approach in this region.” It is, she says, like “a New World sensibility in an Old World wine-producing country.”

Yet efforts to win the hearts and wallets of the everyday American wine drinker remain underway. In May the energetic and easy-on-the-eyes Matricardi brought his Italian élan stateside as part of a good old-fashioned promotional tour to meet with distributors, merchants and, yes, members of the press.
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