Chicago Wine Riot 2013

My sisters and I have been planning outing for months! As soon as Katie turned 21, we began plotting on how to take advantage of our mutual legal drinking ability.

Wine Riot presented the perfect opportunity. It was in Union Station, so I could take the train in and out and meet my siblings easily. The tickets were expensive at $55, but it included unlimited tastings from 1-5 p.m. Challenge accepted.

I also got MacKenna on board earlier this week, then won two tickets from Yelp Elite. My favorite redhead, Jackie, agreed to meet us there and take one of the tickets off my hands. Then, Alyssa said she was in, too.
We got on the scene and immediately got our glasses and got down to business.

We had a fantastic time going around to different tables and trying reds, whites, sparkling and muscato flavors. I found several new favorites.

There were also lots of awesome photo opportunities.

The photo booth had an interesting concept - if you wanted a print out of your photo, it cost $5, but you could tweet it to yourself for free.  Very smart social media-wise. Another smart thing they did is if you tagged your Instagram photos with #WineRiot, a little booth at the back printed the photos automatically and laminated them for free.

And you're never too old for a temporary tattoo.  Or six.

 

It was great learning about wine and spending time with some classy ladies.

I had a great time learning more about wine, too. MacKenna and I discussed this on the train in - it sucks to buy a whole bottle of wine and find out you hate it. A huge waste of money, and then you feel like you should drink it because you paid for it. Then you get in a rut and keep buying the same four bottles of wine over and over again. Variety is the spice of life!

We also scored some awesome swag. Katie brought home a recyclable wine bag, a few glasses, several pairs of sunglasses, a deck of cards and a few other goodies.

I'm not sure if this was worth $55, but we had a really great time. Thanks again to Yelp for hooking me up with the extra tickets so I could share the fun!