Came on like gangbusters here. I am not a hugh Binny’s fan however I have purchased Dujac and Egon Muller wines there and have been pleased with the pricing and the wine condition on arrival.
Shelia - you and i are totally on the same page.
a) traditional wine retail scene in chicago sucks. places like hdh and flickinger are great, but sometimes walking into a store is nice, too. Vin Chicago, Perman, and Red & White (although, I haven’t seen much from them lately) are the best traditional places.
b) i buy all my wine from the coasts
c) i live in andersonville and love shopping at AWS. great beer/liquor options there too.
I have found you need to go to a number of the Binny’s locations. South Loop location often has things you will not find in Lincoln Park, as an example. They certainly have a wide variety at the larger locations. Their prices always seem to be higher than what I find online. If you wait until they have their 10 or 20% off your purchase weekends, the prices often become comparable to elsewhere. But for daily drinkers it really is good. It certainly is not like NYC.
+3 on this with Sheila and Matt.
Gee, I don’t share your views at all.
Binny’s is a good source for good prices. I have friends on this board out of state who buy top wines (e.g. including La Tache) from Binny’s… The River North store is near me and I’ve never been in there when its been anything but normal temperature…certainly not warm. Not sure which location you’ve been to where it has been over 100 degrees, but this would never be true at the one near me.
Knightsbridge is excellent and they always deliver promptly, usually on the same day.
I buy most of my wine from HDH. It is not a traditional “retail” operation (no ‘store’) but they deliver to me for free.
Living in NYC during the week and Chicago for long weekends, I don’t find the wine scene appreciably better in NYC. Some of the derogatory statements above are just plain silly.
There are many other excellent stores mentioned above as well.
I bet they do! ![[cheers.gif]](/uploads/db3686/original/2X/0/0ff9bfcdb0964982cd3240b6159868fbdf215b1a.gif "cheers"){kind=small}
Maybe wine preferences are having an impact here… to be honest, I had better options when living in Detroit/Southeast Michigan to easily find interesting selections of Loire, German, Jura, Sicilian, Basque, and similar off-the-beaten-path wines than I’ve been able to find in Chicago. For the size of the Chicago market, I’d expect better.
It is tough to beat the prices and selection at Vin Chicago on Elston on non collectible wines.
If you are looking for a good practical place to store wine that does not have the Domaine country club feel or price I would highly recommend Strongbox Wine Storage on Irving Park Rd. They also have another location in Old Town/Lincoln Park. Joanne at the Irving Park location is super nice, helpful and their prices are reasonable.
I was fascinated reading this thread and seeing the local opinion (many from friends) on the local Chicago wine shopping scene. In short, I disagree with the opinion that Chicago is lacking… There are some great options out there with solid selection and decent prices if you’re reasonably savvy. Is Chicago as good as NY? Probably not… But it’s damn good compared to where I live now.
Texas, specifically Dallas, is by far the worst place to buy wine of all the metropolitan areas and makes me yearn for my days in Chicago where I could spend an afternoon cruising from store to store, browsing aisles, and hunting for deals… Like that time I found vintage and Lieu Dit Selosse at under $325 at Binny’s and proceeded to tour all their locations to clean them out. I can barely find a decent Champagne selection here!
Couple the terrible selection, horrendous pricing, three tier bias limiting selection to mainly large distributors, and high sales tax and you have a veritable hell hole for wine buying. And if it weren’t bad enough, shipping into Texas has become increasingly difficult and BYOB is technically illegal. The only thing worse could possibly be states like PA where you have to buy your hooch from “the man.”
And since it is bound to get mentioned, yes, Grailey’s has a decent selection as does Pogos, but their prices are brutal.
Chicago peeps… Enjoy what you have! /end rant
put a gps tracker on mark b’s credit card.
This.
George
In addition to the Knightsbridge, Howard’s Wine recos, I have to plug Chevalier Fine Wines. A certain someone who used to work at Knightsbridge opened that shop.
I also like Piccadilly Wines in Urbana.
wanted to put in a plug for Perman wine. I saw that there was some discussion above on whether storefronts are worth it. We inadvertently found Perman after passing by it on a bus on the way to the Target across the street lol. Walked in just to browse, and I was floored by the quality/diversity of the selection, which also seemed very fairly priced overall. It seems like they have a tasting bar, and if I lived in the area, I’d love to come by for a themed tasting. Craig Perman was very friendly and knowledgeable, and he was talking about how the store was a struggle to set up, and it seems like he had closed his other store to focus on this one, which still was very new. Of course it’s more efficient/convenient to buy online, and many times cheaper. However, to me there’s something very valuable about that kind of in-person experience, browsing these bottles in person and finding something new, holding it tangibly in your hand while talking to a genuinely passionate wine lover with a personal passion for every wine (and spirit/beer, etc.) that he chose. Even when I asked some stupid questions, Craig was very gracious and helpful, and he seemed to genuinely want to help me find the bottle I was looking for. The whole experience brought to mind what Chang Rae Lee wrote about online/in-person wine buying in Slate, years ago:
Anyways, to me a diamond in the rough kind of experience, and something that made me want to explore more in person in my own town, not getting so fixated on getting the absolute best prices but looking to build up something more of what I think many of us are seeking in this forum, which is community with other wine lovers.
Compared to what? Try moving to Arizona where BYOB is against the law and wines other than California seem to be rarities. A fancy tasting is the new release of Silver Oak or Caymus. I lived in Chicago for over 30 years, and found it to have a terrific wine scene.
If you head out to Palatine, check out The Wine Cellar. I’ve always found new and interesting stuff there.
http://www.thewinecellaronline.com/
Larry, the owner, is a WB member and has always treated me well.
i cannot believe this thread got revived back to life the same day I returned to post a new thread for the first time in forever…odd coincidence. In any event, I moved to the north shore…any good reccos up this way?
I would highly recommend both Knightsbridge and Wilmette Wine Cellar. They are quite different, but, are both excellent and appeal to a variety of things. Knightsbridge is great for Burgundy and Domestic wines while having real smart selections from other areas in the world. WWC is for more off the beaten path wines and you can pay $10 corkage to open up your bottle and chill there. They also have tastings on Fridays and Saturdays while Knightsbridge will usually have tastings on Saturdays.