Stop and Smell the Rosé at Augusta Food and Wine

By Greg Gonzales

Everyone likes to have “a guy,” whether it’s for car repair or some other service. In Chicago’s Lincoln Square neighborhood, Augusta Food and Wine is a go-to place for wines. The shop is a laid-back kind of place, dog-friendly, where Owner Shane Martin might be found playing guitar next to his own pup, Bradley. The store, named for the first designated American Viticultural Area, has earned a reputation as a local destination for small-batch European wines and providing specialty foods to match. From a limited inventory of 100 to 125 wines, customers will find small-batch, esoteric wines and a constantly changing list.

Patrons seem to enjoy it, too, as Martin’s wine club continues to grow, as does the traffic for weekly tastings. Club members get a discount, and a monthly email that details that month’s wine selection ― the wine itself, the history of the region, the story of the family of farmers and recipes to help members properly pair their wines with food. “Most of our wines are pretty small production,” said Martin, adding that most of the bottles are from Europe. “I’ve got a small collection of some Santa Barbara wines, Oregon, a few Napa cabs. You gotta keep those up top because there’s always that guy who only drinks Napa cabs.
Martin says his clientele tend to be adventurous and willing to try eastern European wines from places like Serbia, Hungary, Croatia and Slovenia. That, he said, might be due in part to how European wines go better with food. “European wines tend to be a little less punchy,” he said. “They’re a little more versatile when it comes to food. When I started bringing in wines, I brought in what I liked, and it worked. Then I started experimenting, putting some New World stuff on the shelf, and it didn’t move as much.”

Whatever inspires their interest in eastern Europe, Augusta’s clients include Millennials, from the mid-twenties and single, to the Gen-Xers their early forties and married with teenage kids ― new money types, said Martin, who like to spend a bit more to try something new and exciting. “They’re not really stuck in a box with what they drink. That’s one of the great things about this generation ― Millennials are my favorite to sell wine to because they are open to anything,” he said. “I feel like there’s an older generation where there wasn’t as much exposure to wine, and they only drink a certain style from a certain place, sometimes even one producer, and it’s very restrictive. So I love the younger audience right now.”

The shop’s location helps draw them in too, as it is literally across the street from the Brown Line stop in Lincoln Square, a route that comes straight from downtown Chicago. “People coming from downtown coming home from work, they can get off the train, come right across the street and come to grab a bottle of wine, maybe a cheese, and walk right home. That’s definitely a huge boon for our business,” said Martin.
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The strip of businesses Augusta operates in is strong on the shop small, shop local movement. And Martin lives close to the Lincoln Square Ravenswood Chamber of Commerce, which puts on a wine stroll every spring and fall, in which the businesses of Lincoln Square are temporarily transformed into wine tasting destinations; the locals purchase tickets, get a route map, and wander around to taste all kinds of different wines. Martin said these types of festivals are common in the area, giving the neighborhood a cohesive, family feel. “It’s one of those neighborhoods where, you could stay in Lincoln Square and never have to go anywhere else.”

In addition to wine, Augusta’s offerings include small-batch foods from smaller distributors ― cheese, olives, anchovies, pates, terrines, salamis, prosciutto, crackers, baguettes, condiments, salts, beers, ice cream, local pies, spirits, specialty bitters, brandy cherries, obscure Bloody Mary mixes. If it’s quirky, new and pairs well with a wine, customers can probably find it at the store.
The shop also puts together cheeseboards and charcuterie boards, and also gift baskets ― and those gift baskets are huge for the holiday season, when some corporate clients will place orders by the hundred.

Martin said local events, gift baskets and the wine club are extremely important to the business’ revenue stream. “The gift baskets are huge, the wine club is guaranteed cash flow that I know is going to happen every month ― it’s always good to have that certainty, where you know money’s going to come in every month,” he said, adding that all the shops are doing their best to fight the demise of the neighborhood small businesses. “That’s always a challenge because when you have a neighborhood like this, the thing that made it great starts to get driven out. We’re small business, we’re week to week. It’s not easy to run a small business, especially in Chicago. It’s very expensive, so you really have to be on top of things. There are little businesses that go under all the time, and I definitely have a different reaction to that now than I did before I owned my own business. It’s heartbreaking ― now I know how much work goes into it, how hard it is, how much passion you have to have to even attempt to keep it afloat.”

“It’s picked up a lot lately. I’ve noticed a lot of new faces, and the wine club is growing a lot,” he continued. “Over the last few months, I think a lot more people have become aware of us. It’s going to be a good year.”