Illinois Hybrid White Varieties

Seyval Blanc: This hybrid variety makes wonderful wine, whether made in dry, off-dry or sweet styles. The varietal character always includes grapefruit and apricot or peach aromas, often also expressing apple or pineapple notes. Goes wonderfully with mild cheeses, turkey, chicken, ham and light pastas.

Vidal Blanc: Crisp lemon and grapefruit flavors are standard, often with apple or peach notes. Great with seafood! When off-dry, pairs well with tomato or light Alfredo sauces and pastas.

Chardonel: A cousin of the well-known Chardonnay, often with a fuller mouth-feel and a light spicy to floral note. Oaks nicely. Pairs with cheeses before dinner and seafood or chicken dishes.

Vignoles: A truly unique wine. Has a distinct spicy nose and presentation, often with apricot, melon, apply, or pineapple notes, a wonderful mouth-feel and finishes long with good acid and a hint of bitters. Can be oaked and kept for several years. Goes well with brie or bleu cheeses and fresh apple slices.

Villard Blanc: Another truly unique wine. Restrained, and pleasant fruit, with varietal and apple notes. Outstanding mouth-feel and mildly spicy. Takes oak well to round out like a white Bordeaux. Excellent as an apertif, with the most cheeses. Pairs well with chicken, pork, mushrooms and with light cream sauces.

Cayuga White: A crisp, mild flavored wine with apple and melon notes. Goes well with mild pork tenderloin, most white fishes, and brie cheese.

Catawba: A popular wine in Illinois. This true blush, from an old American grape, is usually made with a touch of residual sweetness, and has a distinct crispness and strong fruitiness that make it a favorite sipping wine with hors d' oeuvre, mild cheeses, and egg dishes. A good grape for lovers of White Zinfandel.

Niagara: A pleasant, very fruity, old American grape wine that goes well with fruit and cheeses.

Illinois Hybrid Red Varieties

Chambourcin: This hybrid varietal grape has the deep color and strong fruit so desirable to make an intense dry red, with blackberry, raspberry, and cherry aromas and enough acide to help it stand in solid partnership with beef and lamb dishes. Chambourcin oaks well and has a unique tobacco-like spiciness and a complex varietal aroma and taste. Chambourcin also goes well with herbed and peppered pork loin and wild fowl or venison.

Concord: What we think of when we think grape aroma and flavor. Intensely fruity in sweeter styles and dessert wines, it pairs well with fruit and with fruit desserts. It can be a nice complement to ham, cheeses and pastas in off-dry styles, and with pork and turkey in dry styles.

Norton: Usually blended with Chambourcin in Illinois. It can stand alone as a big, intense, oak-aged red that has enough body, complexity, and full-flavored berry and distinct spicy flavors to stand up to heavy meat dishes and fish sauces and most vegetable dishes. Ages for years. Great with aged cheeses.

Chancellor: A medium red with good acidity and fruit in Illinois. Often has berry and elderberry flavors. Most often blended with other reds.

Marechal Foch: A big, intense, dark wine, with strong berry and a unique spicy varietal taste. Usually responds well to aging, with any early roughness rounding out and yielding complex berry notes. Great with venison and other game meats and spiced vegetables. Can sometimes be slightly harsh, slightly vegetative and acidic when young.

St. Croix: Somewhat similar to Foch, but a little less intense fruit and color, with some slight vegetative notes. Oaks and ages well. Blends well. Good with aged cheddar and pot roast.

Frontenac: A cold-hardy new hybrid variety that is just being refined in winemakers' hands. Has the strength of character of a Norton, the intensity of a Foch, the fruitiness of a Chambourcin, and a stubborn willfulness of its own. Has huge potential to make a great aged red.

Illinois Fruit Wines

Rhubarb: Rhubarb wine has full flavor, refreshing acidity, sweetness and long-finishing bitters that rhubarb lovers want in their sauces and pies. Great with glazed ham, turkey, and chicken. Rhubarb has the intense flavor and acidity that make it match well with sweet and sour oriental chicken and spicy meat and fruit combinations.

Cranberry: The unique sweet and sour nature of cranberry comes out wonderfully in cranberry wines. Great with ham, turkey, chicken with fruit sauce. Also goes well with sweet and sour Chinese foods and can stand up to spicy dishes as well.

Apple: A distinct fruit and yet light touch on the palate characterize apple wines. Sweeter styles are wonderful with fruit desserts. Semi-sweet to off-dry styles pair well with glazed ham, turkey and pork with apples or other mild fruit. Dry apple wine is lovely with roast pork loin or roasted chicken.

Blueberry: The most complex flavor of the standard fruit wines. It has a unique varietal flavor and spice that pairs well with certain foods. Goes well with game birds and venison.

Blackberry: Intensely flavored berry that is made in many wine styles, from rich intense to light and dry. Pairs well with spiced fruit and white meats. Blackberry/blueberry wine has proven to be an excellent wine by itself or with a wide variety of foods, due to its excellent sugar-acid-fruitiness.

Strawberry, Apricot, Currant, Other Fruit Wines: It is no wonder that fruit wines are the fastest growing category of Illinois wine sales. Some of the best fruit and the best fruit winemakers are from Illinois. These wines will surprise you with how well they pair with so many meats, fruits and vegetables. Their range of flavor intensity and dryness to sweetness means that one of these fruit wines will match with almost any food you put on the table!

1. White wine is generally served before red.
2. Light-bodied served before full-bodied.
3. Good wine before great.
4. Young before old.
5. Dry before sweet (exception: for a first course of fois gras, serve a late harvest Sauternes or Gewurztraminer).
6. Rinse mouth with water to cleanse palate before drinking a different wine.
7. Light-bodied wine for lighter dish, full-bodied wine for richer dish.
8. White wine for fish, shellfish, white meat, poultry, and veal.
9. Red wine for dark meat, chicken, rabbit, tuna, and salmon.
10. White wine for a dish made with a cream sauce.
11. Drink the same type of wine as was used in the cooking of a dish.
12. Sparkling wines may be enjoyed at any time during the meal.

• Sweet Foods like Italian tomato sauce, Japanese teriyaki, and honey-mustard glazes make your wine seem drier than it really is so try an off-dry (slightly sweet) wine to balance the flavor (Pike Co. Blush Riesling)
• High Acid Foods like salads with balsamic vinaigrette dressing, soy sauce, or fish served with a squeeze of lemon go well with wines higher in acid (Pike Co. White, Pike Co. Blush), although not as high in acid, can provide a nice contrast to high acid foods.
• Bitter and Astringent Foods like a mixed green salad of bitter greens, Greek kalamata olives and charbroiled meats accentuate a wine' bitterness so complement it with a full flavored forward fruity wine (Chardonnay, Cabernet Sauvignon, or Merlot). Big tannic red wines (like many red Zinfandels, and Shiraz or Syrah wines) will go best with your classic grilled steak or lamb chops, as the fat in the meat will tone down the tannin (bitterness) in the wine.

Learning how to taste wines is a straightforward adventure that will deepen your appreciation for both wines and winemakers. Look, smell, taste - starting with your basic senses and expanding from there you will learn how to taste wines like the pros in no time! Keep in mind that you can smell thousands of unique scents, but your taste perception is limited to salty, sweet, sour and bitter. It is the combination of smell and taste that allows you to discern flavor.

LOOK: Check out the color and the clarity. Pour a glass of wine into a suitable glass. Then take a good look at the wine. Tilt the glass away from you and check out the color or the wine from the rim edges to the middle of the glass. What color is it? Look beyond the red white or blush. If it is a red wine is it maroon, purple, ruby, garnet, red, brick or even brownish. If it is a white wine is clear, pale yellow, straw-like, light green, golden amber or brown in color.

Still Looking. Move on to the wine's opacity. Is the wine watery or dark, translucent or opaque, dull or brilliant, cloudy or clear? Can you see sediment? Tilt your glass a bit, give it a little swirl - look again, is there sediment, bits of cork or any other floaters? An older red wine will often have more orange tinges on the edges of color than younger red wines. Older white wines are darker, than younger white wines when comparing the same varietal at different ages.

SMELL: Our sense of smell is critical in properly analyzing a glass of wine. To get a good impression of your wine's aroma, swirl your glass for a solid 10-12 seconds (this helps vaporize some of the wine's alcohol and release more of its natural aromas) and then take a quick whiff to gain a first impression.

Still Smelling. Now stick your nose down into the glass and take a deep inhale through your nose. What are your second impressions? Do you smell oak, berry, flowers, vanilla or citrus? A wine's aroma is an excellent indicator of its quality and unique characteristics. Swirl the wine and let the aromas mix and mingle, and sniff again

TASTE: Finally, take a taste. Start with a small sip and let it roll around your mouth. There are three stages of taste: the Attack phase, the Evolution phase and the Finish.

The Attack Phase, is the initial impression that the wine makes on your palate. The Attack is comprised of four pieces of the wine puzzle: alcohol content, tannin levels, acidity and residual sugar. These four puzzle pieces display initial sensations on the palate. Ideally these components will be well balanced one piece will not be more prominent than the others. These four pieces do not display a specific flavor per se, they meld together to offer impressions in intensity and complexity, soft or firm, light or heavy, crisp or creamy, sweet or dry, but not necessarily true flavors like fruit or spice.

The Evolution Phase is next, also called the mid-palate or middle range phase; this is the wine’s actual taste on the palate. In this phase you are looking to discern the flavor profile of the wine. If it’s a red wine you may start noting fruit – berry, plum, prune or fig; perhaps some spice – pepper, clove, cinnamon, or maybe a woody flavor like oak, cedar, or a detectable smokiness. If you are in the Evolution Phase of a white wine you may taste apple, pear, tropical or citrus fruits, or the taste may be more floral in nature or consist of honey, butter, herbs or a bit of earthiness.

The Finish is appropriately labeled as the final phase. The wine's finish is how long the flavor impression lasts after it is swallowed. This is where the wine culminates, where the aftertaste comes into play. Did it last several seconds? Was it light-bodied (like the weight of water), medium-bodied (similar in weight to milk) or full-bodied (like the consistency of cream)? Can you taste the remnant of the wine on the back of your mouth and throat? Do you want another sip or was the wine too bitter at the end? What was your last flavor impression – fruit, butter, oak? Does the taste persist or is it short-lived?

After you have taken the time to taste your wine, you might record some of your impressions. Did you like the wine overall? Was it sweet, sour or bitter? How was the wine's acidity? Was it well balanced? Does it taste better with cheese, bread or a heavy meal? Will you buy it again? If so, jot the wine's name, producer and vintage year down for future reference.