Michael Weyna was sipping wine at Weinhof Wieninger in Vienna when the idea of opening his own establishment kicked in. Weinhof Wieninger is one of Austria’s many Heurigen, taverns devoted to serving young, locally produced wines and often located near the wineries themelves. “We were at a communal table enjoying great food and fabulous house-made wine, and you could tell the owner really cared,” says Weyna. “I thought, why can’t we have that feeling in the States? It’s not like a wine bar hasn’t been done before, but I knew how I wanted to do it. I wanted to be the theater in which wine makers can show their work.”
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The 37-year-old Evanston native honed his palate during the seven and a half years he spent selling small producers’ wine for distributor Vin de Vino. Before that he’d worked for close to five years as an assistant wine buyer for the Wilmette specialty store Convito Italiano, where he developed a love for Italian wines. When he opened the 100-seat Stained Glass Wine Bar, Bistro, and Cellar in Evanston in 1998, the personal relationships he’d formed with some small vintners came in handy. In fact they “drive the wine list at my place,” says Weyna, who will pick a bottle “because I like it, I think it’s cool, not because I think I need a merlot or I think my sales will be down this week.” He hand selects each of his 32 glass pours and 400 bottles. “I don’t care where it’s from and I don’t care what it costs–it could be from Skokie. As long as it speaks to me and it’s yummy, it belongs on my list.”
Weyna’s searching pays off in flights like his “Gone Fishing” sampler, named for the wines’ affinity to seafood. It includes the minerally and citrusy 2001 Jurtschitsch Gruner Veltliner from Langenlois, Austria; a 1999 Domaine Klipfel gewurztraminer “Freiberg,” from Alsace, that has good acidity and a slightly petroleum nose; and a 2001 Garretson Roussanne from Santa Barbara, full of dried apricots and pears, with a touch of smoke and a small dose of residual sugar. “I work closely with my kitchen,” says Weyna: all three wines complement chef Victor Hernandez’s seared sugarcane-skewered ahi tuna with Moroccan spices and a green mango slaw.
