Alpana Singh, Scoozi!, River North, Chicago
Jason Steele, Scoozi!, River North, Chicago
Rachelle, Erin, Alpana & Chuck, Scoozi!, River North, Chicago
Alpana Singh invited Chuck and I to a wine event last night. I asked Erin to come as my “plus one” because I thought she’d enjoy the wine and meeting Alpana. Also, I don’t believe we got invited to as many events back when she was the Chicagoist Food Editor. Anyway, last night was really fun. I’d never been to Scoozi! before and enjoyed the appetizers they served (prosciutto and arugula pizza, yum!). And of course, the wine was good. I really enjoyed the Masi Masianco Pinot Grigio and the Marco Carpineti Tufaliccio Rosso.
I’d heard it was so, but was still pleased to learn that Alpana was really down to earth and nice and talkative. We spoke for quite a while and our conversation ranged from wine to booze to the CTA to dermatologists and gynecologists to working out and yoga. And probably 10 more things I can’t remember now. We also met Alpana’s husband, Charles Blackstone. After coming home and looking up his website, I realized that Charles and I had emailed back when his book was first released and I wrote a post about it.
The event was also a singles mixer and Jason Steele spoke briefly about dating. None of us were really there to hook up, we were there for the wine, but when talking about how she thought more men should attend wine tastings, at one point Alpana said “If you can’t get laid at a wine tasting, then you can’t get laid.” I thought it kind of was representative of how she is obviously really very intelligent about wine* but at the same time she believes in making wine fun and casual and bringing it down to the level of the everyman. Which is way cool. Wine doesn’t have to be snooty and obscure and I don’t think it is and I don’t think Alpana thinks it is. We had fun and I’m glad we met. She’s totally someone I could hang out in the bar and drink with.
* Alpana passed the Court of Master Sommeliers’ advanced certification test at age 21 to become the youngest person to ever achieve the rank of Master Sommelier… and the master sommelier exam only has a 3% pass rate.
