Taste of Lincoln - Wine Tasting

Lincoln Park Wine Fest - Taste of Lincoln

In the contunation of the Lincoln Park Wine Festival, the Wrightwood Neigbors again features some of the summer best wines at the 2017 Taste of Lincoln. Daily sessions from 2:00 p.m. to 6:00 p.m.on Saturday and Sunday, July 29th and 30th.

Included in the tasting is

15 Tastings

Souvenir Tasting Glass

By far one of Chicago’s largest and most popular summer celebrations, the Taste of Lincoln Avenue will be celebrating its 34th year in 2017! This iconic event sprawls over six city blocks on a major artery in the heart of Lincoln Park where this popular neighborhood meets the vibrant DePaul University population. Once home to Chicago’s original club scene, today the neighborhood boasts many of the city’s most acclaimed theaters, music venues and restaurants. Taste of Lincoln Avenue began as a small neighborhood fundraiser and has grown to become the one of the largest street festival in the city. It features food vendors with a highlight of Unique Sausage and Hot Dog Encased Meat Vendors, a wide variety of cultural and ethnic restaurants, retail merchants and 20-plus music acts on two stages.

This year’s event celebrates musically “Tributepalooza” a tribute to the best Tribute bands in the nation. Other major attractions: Interactive displays, Wine Tasting, a Bourbon Tasting, A popular one-block "Kids' Carnival" area with entertainment, art activities, pony rides, a petting zoo and much more.

About a Wine Tasting

A Wine tasting allows you to extend your experience in the adventure of expanding your scope of wine varietals. It offers you the freedom to expand your knowledge. The following are a few simple tasting tips:

1. Look

Check out the color, opacity and viscosity (wine legs). You don’t really need to spend more than 5 seconds on this step. A lot of clues about a wine are buried in its appearance, but unless you’re tasting blind, most of the answers that those clues provide will be found on the bottle (i.e. vintage, alcohol %, grape variety).

2. Smell

When you first start smelling wine, think big to small. Are there fruits? Think of broad categories first, i.e. citrus, orchard, or tropical fruits in whites or, when tasting reds, red fruits, blue fruits, or black fruits. Getting too specific or looking for one particular note can lead to frustration. Broadly, you can divide the nose of a wine into three primary categories:

• Primary Aromas are grape-derivative and include fruit-driven, herbal, and floral notes.
• Secondary Aromas come from winemaking practices. The most common aromas are yeast-derivative and are most easy to spot in white wines: cheese rind, nut husk (almond, peanut), or stale beer.
• Tertiary Aromas come from aging, usually in bottle, or possibly in oak. These aromas are mostly savory: roasted nuts, baking spice, vanilla, autumn leaves, old tobacco, cured leather, or mushroom.

3. Taste

Taste is how we use our tongues to observe the wine, but also, once you swallow the wine, the aromas may change because you’re receiving them retro-nasally.

• Taste: Our tongues can detect salty, sour, sweet, or bitter. All wines are going to have some sour, because grapes all inherently have some acid, but this varies with climate and grape type. Some varieties are known for their bitterness (i.e. Pinot Grigio), and it manifests as a sort of light, pleasant tonic-water-type flavor. Some white table wines have a small portion of their grape sugars retained, and this adds natural sweetness. You can’t ever smell sweetness though, since only your tongue can detect it. Lastly, very few wines have a salty quality, but in some rare instances salty reds and whites exist.
• Texture: Your tongue can “touch” the wine and perceive its texture. Texture in wine is related to a few factors, but an increase in texture is almost always happens in a higher-alcohol, riper wine. Ethanol gives a wine texture because we perceive it as “richer” than water. We also can detect tannins with our tongue, which are that sand-paper or tongue-depressor drying sensation in red wines.
• Length: The taste of wine is also time-based, there is a beginning, middle (mid-palate) and end (finish). How long does it take before the flavor of the wine isn’t with you anymore?

4. Conclude

Did the wine taste balanced or out of balance (i.e. too acidic, too alcoholic, too tannic)? Did you like the wine? Was this wine unique or unmemorable? Were there any characteristics that shined through and impressed you?

Please note: Ticket includes Wine Tasting ONLY (event admission is FREE). Event is rain or shine and no refunds will be issued. ONLY children ages 6 and under will be permitted within the premises of the tasting.