CRAZY FOR WINE

PAZZO DI VINO winery opened its outdoor courtyard last summer in Highwood amid the COVID-19 crisis, offering up wine tastings and live music for a socially distanced escape. The winery’s founders do not believe that that wine has to be complicated or intimidating. Simply put, the best wines are the ones you like. And there is plenty to like about the approachable wines at Pazzo di Vino which means crazy about wine in Italian.
As a first-generation Italian American, Master Winemaker Lorenzo DiVito initially learned the craft from his father. In this genuine local microwinery, DiVito creates, blends, and bottles all wine on site. With a robust offering of Rosé, Chardonnay, Pinot Noir, Cabernet, Merlot, Old Vine Zinfandel, and a variety of proprietary blends, there is something for everyone to enjoy.

Here you can perch at the bar in the Tasting Room to sample wines, relax in the cozy Gallery and Hearth Rooms (with a collection of portraits from around the world), or linger outside in the expansive, string-lit courtyard as the weather warms, listening to live music. In addition to wine and the full bar, a seasonal small-bites menu prepared by Chef Dominic Zumpano of The Gallery and The Peanut Gallery in Lake Forest will be available. Also available are bottle sales and growler refills (their wines are actually on tap from barrels in the Tasting Room), and virtual tastings with DiVito.

Pazzo di Vino is located at 524 Sheridan Road in Highwood. For more information, visit pazzodivinowinery.com or call 847-875-6201. Curbside pickup is available.

TOULOUSE-LAUTREC AND THE CELEBRITY CULTURE OF PARIS EXHIBITION AT THE ART INSTITUTE OF CHICAGO

WELCOME TO Montmartre— an outlying Parisian neighborhood known for its cabarets and dance halls— where a flamboyant nightlife exploded in the late 19th century. Among the artists, performers, and ambitious entrepreneurs who called this bohemian quartier home was painter and printmaker Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec, who made a career depicting its most colorful personalities using the relatively new advertising medium of large-scale posters.

This focused installation of his works comprises posters, paintings, and painted objects. Dynamic and instantly recognizable, Lautrec’s images filled the streets of Paris and helped catapult his clients to fame. Through cutting-edge experiments in lithography, Lautrec emphasized the distinctive traits of singers and dancers such as Jane Avril, Aristide Bruant, and May Milton, as well as actors, writers, and cabaret owners, to distinguish them from their competition. Even as he helped make celebrities of others, Lautrec himself became a celebrity of sorts through the popularity of his posters and paintings, notable for their singular style and unconventional materials and techniques.

Toulouse-Lautrec and the Celebrity Culture of Paris runs through June 2021 at the Art Institute of Chicago, 111 South Michigan Avenue, Chicago. For more information, visit artic.edu.