Galentine’s Day came early for us this year! Our Parks and Recs fans know that Galentine’s Day is a very important holiday to celebrate your female friendships. We celebrated by getting together with a couple of girlfriends…and opening more than a couple of bottles of wine. Two major highlights of the lineup were from Love Cork Screw and Teneral Cellars.
Founder of Love Cork Screw Chrishon Lampley built her brand from the ground up. Lampley created a blog called Love Cork Screw after inspiration struck while curating the wine list for a gallery in the South Loop of Chicago that she co-owned. When a flood caused the gallery to close, she took it as an opportunity to launch her wine brand in 2014.
Lampley sources grapes from small regional farmers and works with winemakers in the Midwest to produce her wines right in Illinois and Michigan. Some, but not all, of her wines feature North American native vitis labrusca, the fox grape.
To understand what’s unique about this, let’s break down grape species. Almost all of the wine we drink today is made from a species of grape called vitis viniferas. This species dates back to ancient winemaking, is now all over the world, and includes standby varieties like Cabernet Sauvignon, Chardonnay, Merlot, and so on.
Vitis labrusca varieties are generally thought of as table grapes as opposed to wine grapes. Think Niagara (the delicious green grapes you buy at the grocery store!) and Concord – often used in jams and grape juice, but also common as landscaping decor in New England. Lampley challenged the status quo in sourcing vitis labrusca grapes from the Midwest, yielding some full-bodied, sweeter wines.
Between the contemporary, primary-color-driven labels, low prices, and cheeky names like We Go High, Hard Knock Life, and Touch the Sky, Lampley aims to make a wine for everybody.
“I did these wines and these labels for a reason, to help people unaccustomed to wine find a better product that doesn’t talk down or sell up to them … My taste leans toward dry and crisp, but I want to give people what they want. I don’t want people to be embarrassed about buying something that’s sweet, while their friends are drinking Chianti and Bordeaux … As a one-woman show, I don’t have the funds to do marketing — I embody ‘doing twice as much to get half as far.’ But I’m all about helping other black women entrepreneurs be seen, and these stores and distributors have given me a chance to do that. You can’t tell me I’m a fad. “
-Chrishon Lampley, Chicago Tribune
Our taste leans dry and crisp too, but if sweet is your thing, now you know where you can find something just your speed.
We’re Movin’ On Up Cabernet ($16) is smooth, plump with black fruits and vanilla, and just slightly sweet, making it a perfect bottle to dish over with your girlfriends. Our other favorite: Teneral Cellars 1 in 8 Claret ($20) is a beautiful ode to Bordeaux – but we’re going to get into this one in March, so stay tuned!
Cheers!
Witty Pairs 