About this Event
nouveau.
and don't sweat! our 4th annual NOUVEAU party is nearly here! right on the halloween party's heels!
this year, we made a major call. after 3 years of playing with pinot noir and gamay and blaufranckish (grapes all related, if you didn't know), we decided to hit nouveau with something more akin to nouveau, as a concept. we talk each year about how french tweens roll barrels down the streets in beaujolais towns around-about the third week of november. w fresh, young wine ready to drink. carbonic gamay, yuuzh.
and so yeah! we shot for gamay! it grows well in northern michigan, actually! but it's a late ripener. and for this region, that means it's ready to pick, like, the first week of november. eek. that's a little TOO young and fresh. like the 50yo w the technically permissible 23yo woman. i mean: you do you! them do them! there's power in getting what you want! in all directions! but nobody *really* wants a 50yo (or 43yo) man! (jk jk jk sry gen x fans don't take yourselves so srsly i'm that 43yo btw). and nobody *really* wants a 2.5 week old wine. it's just grape liquor at that point.
so we used blau and pinot. in the past. in an attempt to get even a tiny pinch more time. and it helped! the wines were fun!! and juuuust ready in time.
but this year we said "wtf is this chaos theory we been gassing on?" marquette grows like wild in michigan. like the weeds lining the sidewalks near bungalow in the summer. and it ripens early. and!! we've got about 4 tons of it on our hippie farm! let's grab that. carbonic macerate it. and see how it does at T-G time!"
wait back up back up cuz it's on... marquette. wine from catholics??? ok. some background. we're not too sure if this father jack marquette man was good or bad. i'd reckon bad, but most accessible material on him doesn't sound so bad. this guy GOT THE F AROUND the upper midwest. (which means he probably poisoned people in one organ or another.) the driftless area. the upper peninsula. the northern michigan coast. the "chicago portage". no wonder his name is fucking everywhere in these partitions. it's even on a french-american WINE GRAPE. we modern folk'll named the latter after the named things, probably. and it became maybe the most ubiquitous grape grown in the upper middle west. it kills in this climate. against our pests and diseases.
marquette makes for a fairly neutral red wine. it's dark red as a rose—purple, even—and dark redder as a red. the first time we made a single varietal marquette, we made it somewhere in between the former and latter. and it came out a pinch purple'r than brick red. a super approachable food wine, on the neutral side. we loved this one on TWT. cuz FSaSu bring too much pressure. weekday reds and whites. and purples.
BUT! for the 2025 harvest, we carbonic macerated the thing. we harvested it early-mid september under the guise of our old hippie friend, bryan taylor. and husteled it back to bungalow macerate in the brewery room. the wine picked up some wild berry fruit. and a little colonialists' spice.
between the two wines, we've got a pretty cool spectrum. that is: 2023's * W E N D Y * ... a workaday wine. from a workaday country. named for a workaday proselytizer. and 2025's * N O U V E A U * ... a thx-giving day wine. for a little transcendance. from the workaday world.
come give them a shot on THURS, NOV 20. from 5—9p. we'll have a marquette piquette from las mujeres. and some other nouveau wines from around the country. as always. ... in addition to OYSTERS on the half, slices and char dogs. and a DJ set by the inimitable DEE-TROIT JAMES.
Event Venue & Nearby Stays
middle brow - bungalow, 2840 West Armitage Avenue, Chicago, United States
USD 13.82
