Gretchen Neuman
VinoVerve Editor

Wineries in cities have become more popular over the last few years. But the Wild Blossom Winery has been in Chicago’s Beverly neighborhood for years. The winery operates out of a storefront on the dry side of Western Avenue so you must go else where to purchase their products (There is a Foremost across the street, for instance) and they offer for sale beer and winemaking materials and offer classes as well.
The wineries most prominent product is mead. They offer traditional grape wines for those of you who want to complain that mead isn’t really wine, but the mead is their pride and joy. Greg Fischer, the wine maker keeps 80 hives loves to talk about how mead is the most sustainable of wine. Indeed, honey, water and yeast are your chief requirements, meaning that a well tended hive and winemaking skill is all that is need to produce the wine. The bees and wildflowers do all the rest.

The only wines that I tasted at Wild Blossom were the meads and I was surprised by the range of flavors. The first wine that I tasted was the Blanc de Fleur. This wine was floral and drier than I anticipated. It was more like a dry Riesling with a mellower, honeyed finish. The Prairie Passion is a more traditional mead with more distinct honey flavors and a finish of tropical fruits. The sweetest offering was the Sweet Desire which is fermented in Bourbon barrels. It is sold in bottles that seem to belong in a laboratory and seem to add to the sweet and mellow alchemy.
The use of fruit in the making of mead is a long established practice. The result is referred to generically as Melomel (with some cultures having more specific names depending on the fruit used). Wild Blossom produces a number of Melomels and I had an opportunity to taste some of them. I anticipated that the blueberry mead would be overwhelmingly fruity and was surprised to find that it was not. There was a good balance between the fruit and the honey. The raspberry peach variety was sweeter with the smooth finish of peach but the brighter nose of the raspberry. But, I have to admit that I was most surprised by the Wildberry Mead. It had a smokiness that surprised me.
In addition to the wine making, Wild Blossom is also a home brew center in Chicago. Operating as Bev Art, they sell materials for and teach the techniques for making beer, wine and mead in your own home. During the time, that I was at the winery, several customers came in to purchase materials. They were return customers to Bev Arts and were excited to talk about what their fermentation plans.
Wild Blossom Meadery & Winery
Bev Art Brewer and Winemaker Supplies
10033 S. Western Avenue
Chicago, IL 60643
773.233.7579