Holiday shopping got you down? Just can’t find the perfect gift for those people on your list? Just Grapes has the answer! We’re truly a one-stop shop for everyone on your shopping list (even the little ones–our never-expiring tasting cards will still be valid once they turn 21!). To make it even easier, we’ve put [...]

By Maggie Smith
Our monthly make your own barrel meeting was last week. I hate calling them meetings since at your typical work meetings you don’t drink wine, dine at Province, and chat with amazing food and wine loving people. However there was some “work” to be done. We combined our Cabernet tasting with our Pinot [...]

by Maggie Smith
Tasting wine for a living is a tough job, but someone has to relay this information to you! Last week at Gibson’s Steakhouse, our barrel group’s “mission” (linked blog post from last thursday) was to bring a bottle of wine in the $50-to-$100 price range from anywhere in the world to blind taste, [...]

I recently attended a 2006 Vintage Tasting of Bordeaux Wines at the Palmer House. Many stand-out producers were in attendance and, as always, it’s a rare and welcome opportunity in my world to get to taste a large number of wines – in a row – from the same appellations. This led me to brush [...]

After meeting with his top economic advisers today, Barack Obama will hold his first press conference as president-elect right here in Chicago.
He faces global stock markets more shaky than Jell-O. Domestically, worry over the economy was widely reported as voters’ top concern. The world in general will be watching intensely to see what kind of relief our soon-to-be president can bring.
In [...]

You can drink your favorite blood-red bottle with your secret stash of dark chocolate M&M’s on Halloween. At the party, just tell them all it’s the NV Black Chook Sparkling Shiraz. They’ll never guess from the looks of this dark, frothy bubbly.
Maybe you prefer something as evil as you. A swig of the 2007 Evil Cabernet [...]

“Summer is finished,” says famed Chef Martial Noguier, matter-of-factly. “Bye-bye, summer.”
And hello root vegetables, spices and venison at Cafe des Architectes in the Hotel Sofitel Chicago, where French Chef Noguier took over as executive chef when he left one sixtyblue in August.
Green is gone, and turnips, rutabaga, cinnamon, cloves and other fall flavors now dominate Chef Noguier’s palette. His [...]

We are currently out in Napa with a group of customers participating in the Just Grapes Barrel Project 2008 where we will be making a barrel of the famous 2008 Trailside Vineyard Cabernet Sauvignon in Rutherford Valley in the heart of Napa Valley California.  This is our first look at the amazing quality fruit that [...]

This is the Just Grapes’ Barrel Project second meeting. We are making a barrel of 2008 Trailside Cabernet Sauvignon from Rutherford, Napa Valley. We met at Vivo Restaurant in Chicago and blind tasted the following wines to determine what the group preferred in winemaking styles.