You don’t have to go to Kings Cross Station and find Platform 9 3/4 for a Harry Potter-themed wine tasting — you just have to make it out to Chicago and be able to cast confundo on someone with a Harry Potter tasting ticket.
City Winery in Chicago is hosting “Expecto! A Harry Potter Wine Dinner” at the end of October. Details are light, but it promises people will “experience all the magic of Harry Potter through your taste-buds” with a prix fixe dinner and wine pairing “that not even ‘obliviate’ will make you forget.”
You get the point. Spell references. The $85, four-course dinner and wine menu will be based on the four houses of Hogwarts: Hufflepuff, Slytherin, Ravenclaw and Gryffindor. No word if actual badgers, snakes, ravens and griffins will be on the menu, but there will be “a dash of mystery and a dollop of creativity.”
There are, of course, the natural wine pairings for each house. Gryffindors prefer a nice, full-bodied Cabernet Sauvignon, Ravenclaws accio over bottles of Riesling like there’s no tomorrow, Slytherins sip on peppery Zinfandel and Hufflepuffs are obviously #RoséAllDay.
The only problem? Harry Potter fandom can’t stop, won’t stop and the tickets sold out faster than a patronus out of Harry’s phoenix feather core wand. So much for mischief managed. Hopefully for all the ticket buyers, food and wine fit the world of Potter better than plays do. We’re pretty sure City Winery is run by muggles, though.
Whatever it ends up being like, you can bet the lucky few who got tickets won’t need to know how to cast an evanesco spell to make the wine disappear.
