chicago

now on my third day in Chicago and it's truly incredible. 75 degrees, sunny, clean and very vibrant. wines have been well received and I am sharing a room at the charming Whitehall Hotel on the Miracle Mile so we're walking distance to almost everything. The event tonight is the Wine, Women and Shoes fundraiser for Unicef at the Museum of Contemporary Art so I will be pouring the 2004 chardonnay and the signature zinfandel to the sold out crowd. Meanwhile, we are bar/restaurant hopping our way through town. We've had glasses of the Perata Cabenet at NoMi, flights of champagnes at Cru, an incredible roasted artichoke with a brie and grain mustard sauce at Bistro 110, a sublime skate wing dusted with almond flour and finished in a brown butter at Blue Water Grill, the tuna tartare at Elan and, of course, pizza at Gino's. We are off to "Kevin's" for lunch and will see where we end up from there. And yes, we are selling wine all the while. Sometimes this job has huge rewards like this, building a memory of three wonderful days.