Drink in the Northern Illinois Wine Trail

If you go west, you can hit the Northern Illinois Wine Trail. Charming towns with antique stores and cute cafes wend their way across the state up to the town of Galena and Eagle Ridge Resort, both of which host an annual spring Wine Lovers' Weekend to kick off the season in gourmet, celebrity chef/winemaker/sommelier fashion.

[Sera Lowe]

I actually use to live in Chicago and having been in Santa Barbara, CA a few years as well my partner and I had the wine bug. We went own to several vinyards in Illinois and some on the wisconsin border. I believe there was even a winery that made all their wines from different fruits and None from grapes!

The grapes in that area of the country tend to get water logged so the wine makers import tonnage from southern CA to help mix their wines. All in all, some very nice vinyards. We followed the ones near the trail of tears national park.