Webster’s Wine Bar - Wine Menu Resource
The beverage menu Webster’s is set up to not only describe a wine but also its context. Whether that be the place, the people, the weather, the soil or any other aspect of terroir, we want to provide our customers with a cliff note about each wine to help facilitate your job during service and inspire some congruency with what we feel is important about wine and how we speak about it.
Being familiar with our wine descriptions and some context of how the wines taste is as informed as we expect our team to be. Beyond that, this resource is a log and timeline of the wines and other libations we add to our menu. It’s full of links and tangents to inspire your own wine journey and education. We understand that sometimes learning about wine can seem like drinking from a fire hose, especially when it’s something new. Here is a way to learn more about each menu addition and inevitably more about wine in general.
Wine is a food, grown on a farm and we seek out and support farmers that are stewards of the land and value sustainability of a farm over its profit. The farm is the land, its crops, its livestock, the people who work and live there, its finances and economy and every symbiosis that makes the annual cycle possible. This is the dialogue we choose over buzz trends like ‘natural wine’ or ‘minimal intervention’ that often muddy the wine world with dogmatic values where healthy grape growing and winemaking is much more complex. Our job is to make the complex simple for our customers. To not inform, but be informed. That is inclusive and key to great hospitality.
Cheers
-Nik
P.S. This resource is a collection of assembled works from many sources and authors. It is intended as a resource for Webster’s employees and should never be published, as that would be plagiarism of intellectual property and infringe on any associated copyright or trademark.
2025.1.4
RESERVE
MENU ADDITIONS
TOURAINE LOIRE VALLEY
2023 Le Clos du Tue-Bœuf, VDF Rouge Pineau d'Aunis, Les Montils, Touraine, France, Bin 96R
Reserve $81 Employee Cost $44 -50% Employee Wine Discount
A very lightly colored variety this Pineau d'Aunis exhibits bright red barely ripe strawberry aromas integrated and which highlights a nice balance of acid and tannin. A historic significance for wine making, records of the lieu-dit “le Tue-Boeuf” and the Puzelat family go as far back as the 1400’s. After the creation of the Cheverny AOC the Puzelat’s became one of the first examples of customers trusting the estate’s work methods over the appellation itself as many of the varieties and cuvée they produce buck the AOC’s rules.​​
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2018 Noëlla Morantin 'Tango Atlantico,' Cabernet Franc | Côt, Touraine, Loire, France, Bin 130 BB
Reserve $75 Employee Cost $32 -50% Employee Wine Discount
This dusty red fruited cuvée, balanced in favor of acid over tannin makes for a delightful bistro wine. After stints working with Agnès and René Mosse and Didier Barrouillet of Clos Roche Blanche, Noëlla secured her own parcels that she tends organically. Her wines are vinified with deft minimal intervention. Almost everything ferments in large wooden vats and miniscule sulfur is used at bottling.​​
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2021 Quinten Borse Le Sot de L’Ange Rouge, Cabernet Franc | Merlot | Pinot Noir Touraine Azay le Rideau, Loire, France, Bin 132AA
Reserve $74 Employee Cost $30 -50% Employee Wine Discount
Expect a savory wine with woodsy aromas, concentrated red fruit and spicy but polite variety characteristics from the mostly cabernet blend. The ‘Le Sot’ Angel of Azay-Le Rideau biodynamically farms his ever expanding holdings with intention to let the farming do most of the winemaking leaving the intervention in the cellar focused on expressing the terroir of each wine.​​
2023 Hervé Villemade Rouge, Pinot Noir | Gamay, AOC Cheverny, Loire, Bin 98CC
Reserve $75 Employee Cost $32 -50% Employee Wine Discount
Here is a bistro wine juicy with aromas of ripe raspberry, cherry, wisps of struck flint and forest floor balanced on soft tannin. Villemade is a notable part of the second wave of organic wine farmers and minimal interventionists following in the footsteps of the Puzelats at Clos du Tue-Bœuf and Marcel Lapierre in Beaujolais. He tends 22 hectares on the edge of the Sologne forest and makes wines that, while being appellation correct, tend to lean toward expressing terroir over any potentially insipid conformity.​​
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2025.1.3
RESERVE
MENU ADDITIONS
2022 Famille Amoreau, Duc des Nauves, Merlot | Cabernet, Côtes de Bordeaux, Bordeaux Bin 110 Q
Reserve $83 Employee Cost $46 -50% Employee Wine Discount
A cuvée from a neighboring vineyard belonging to the Amoreau family, situated on the same astéries-limestone mother rock as their Chateau Le Puy estate, but at a slightly lower altitude at 80 meters above sea level compared to 110 meters. The culture and the vinification are carried out by the team following the same approach: natural, organic and biodynamic. Fermentation occurs with indigenous yeast, maturing in small, cement vats, bottled without filtration after 12 months. With of black fruited, aromas of plum and cherry the 22’ vintage is ripe with higher alcohol than the past 3 vintages but completely balanced with velvety tannins, perfect for Chef Mckenna’s Steak frites au Poivre​​
2021 Finca Parera FAK Fins Als Kullons, Sumoll | Garnatxa Blanca | Xarel·lo, Penedés, Catalunya, Spain Bin 14 U
Reserve $83 Employee Cost $48 -50% Employee Wine Discount
This traditional Claret style bounds with aromas from stone, carnation and ripe citrus with whisps candy cigarettes. The body is refreshing leaving generous velvety tannins balanced with acid that want to be quenched immediately. First the Granatxa Blanca and Xarel·lo, (white varieties) are macerated and infused together at low temperatures. When the Sumoll, (red variety), is ripe, it co-ferments with the whites. The wine is gravity settled during the winter and bottled in 1 liter because of its quaff-ability.​​
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*Be sure to ask Catie O about Finca Perera as she worked with Ruben Parera for both the 2017 & 2019 harvests!
2024.12.30
ORANGE BTG
MENU ADDITION
2022 Alice L'Estrange & Las Fermentadas La Sol de Coelemu, Moscatel | Corinth, Itata Valley, Chile
BTG $19, BTB $80 1/2 Glass $10 Employee Cost $42 -50% Employee Wine Discount
Well here is a fresh cut bouquet of warm weather in a glass for your winter doldrums. It’s almost all Moscatel showing off ripe aromas of apricot and peach but with 8 weeks sitting on the skins there are tannins and acid to balance all the fruit. Soledad Caamaño’s La Únion vineyard is organically farmed and untilled. Alice has helped to convert his vineyard to chemical-free, regenerative farming practices and Las Fermentadas is a project she helms, open to any women who would like to make wine collaboratively at her winery as a team.​
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On Muscat: From my experience this is a pungently aromatic of ripe stone and tropical fruit ranging from white peach, in the most polite iterations, to a can of Goya nectar in the most brutal. It's often in co-ferments and field blends where it's aromas usually stand out from all the other varieties. I am skeptical that there is any major difference between Muscat, Moscatel, Muscat de Alexandria and Zibibbo spread around the Mediterranean, into Europe, and beyond as they all exhibit their extremely aromatic quality. Muscat was most recently sought after for making sweet wine and while anciently and originally produced with skin contact is now once again en vogue to vinify Muscat on its the skins.
2024.12.22
MENU ADDITION
2023 Weingut Keller, ‘limestone’, Riesling Kabinett, Rheinhessen, Bin 40A
Reserve List $88, Employee Cost $58 -50% Employee Wine Discount
Arguably Germany’s top estate for dry, off-dry and sweet Rieslings, Keller’s wines have become scarce, and in turn, prohibitively expensive. I was delighted to see this affordable bottling hit the Chicago market. It’s assembled from a selection of vines, mostly Westhofener Morstein, where the soil layer is packed with clay marl soils and limestone inclusions on top of massive limestone bedrock. Minerality from this site has brought fame to the Westhofen winemakers and one of Klaus-Peter’s wines at this price is a rare value. Don't get hooked.
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wwb team,
get hooked! bring riesling to dinner parties. take riesling to byob’s. drink riesling every time you cook for yourself, at least while you’re doing it. drink riesling, smoke weed and play records. drink dry riesling. drink sweet riesling. drink riesling that you can't quite put your finger on whether it's dry or sweet. drink sparkling riesling sekt. drink rieslings from the middle mosel.
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these are all on our list. everyone of them has tugged at my heart strings and, mark my words, they will be prohibitively expensive some day. If riesling hasn't inspired you in your wine journey yet, here is your opportunity. ​
2024.12.21
MENU ADDITIONS
2022 DaniloThomain Enfer d'Arvier Valle d'Aosta, Italy, Bin 91AA
Reserve List $87, Employee Cost $58 -50% Employee Wine Discount
I selected this wine not only because of the excellent illustration on the label, but most because of this vital juice. It's made from 90% Petit Rouge / 10% Pinot Noir, Gamay, and Gamaret. I also just learned that this vineyard is "home of the second highest wine producing zone in the valley, the Enfer d’Arvier is a splendorous amphitheater of steeply terraced vines overlooking the Dora Baltea/Doire Baltée River below. The shape of this “bowl” of vineyards effectively concentrates the heat of the sun, thus giving birth to the “hell of Arvier” moniker."For me this wine offers ideas of fall turning into winter, soft corduroy, or suede leather textures, gentle, but lively spices, tobacco, and leather lined car seats. This wine has a bit of unruliness, which I appreciate! I think it would pair with lamb, mushrooms, a hearty stew and even a dark mysterious film. - Catie O.
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2023 Kobal Wine Estate ‘Bajta’, Blaufrankish, Podravje, Stajerska Slovenia, Bin N10
Reserve List $64, Employee Cost $33 -50% Employee Wine Discount
This bubbly bit of pink magic left me speechless for a moment! 100% Blaufränkisch,100% delicious. A fun, fresh and joyous expression of Slovenian Blaufrankisch is dazzling, jumpy, a kiss of sweetness and offers beautiful red and pink fruits. " Kobal wines come from the Haloze appellation in Stajerska, Slovenia, and have been considered a top wine growing sites in central Europe since Roman times." The vines are situated on steep slopes mostly of marl and 35 year old vines speak vividly. Well made and very stable, so if you don't finish it in one sitting, you can enjoy it over a few days. This wine needs no food, but it sure could be enjoyed with a spicy dish or fresh fruit. - Catie O.
Wine Maker Ivo Kobal
2019 Heitlinger, Pinot Noir, Baden Germany, Bin 89AA
Reserve List $78, Employee Cost $38 -50% Employee Wine Discount
The Heitlinger Spatburgunder, (Pinot Noir), comes from the southwest corner of Germany, another area where Krampus likes to clamor about. It's highly elegant, delicate, balanced and truly enjoyable. "Baden (an obsolete German word for baths) is the western part of the German state of Baden-Württemberg, named for Baden-Baden, which was named for its hot springs." The juice is aged oak, not overpowering one bit. The finish is as long as Krampus' tongue! The winery is certified organic as well. I think this wine is an ageable wine, like all of us,but most definitely drinking solid as of now. This wine is asking for food! And I think it would pair with delicate spices, nutty flavors, root vegetables, and even chocolate! - Catie O
2021 Camille & Mathieu Apffel, Avant la Tempête, Jacquère, Savoie, Bin 85 A
Reserve List $81, Employee Cost $44 -50% Employee Wine Discount
A next level expression of the variety, this Jacquère is slightly reductive with lemon grass aromas, wisps of cilantro and jalapeño once on the palate. The body is thirsty with acid rich structure that will have you quenching your thirst with more. Mathieu and wife Camille, work 100% manually on 4.5 hectares of land in the village of Saint-Baldoph below the imposing Massif de Chartreuse. Jacquère vines are 30 to 70 years old planted outside the winery. The prior owner worked conventionally and the couple are converting the estate to organic viticulture and 2021 marked the first vintage when they did soil work between the rows since conversion.
