Please help a NY/Chicago bride choose!

[hotwine]

The spices throw my aim off on this one. There are lots of good merlots, Rieslings and Champagnes available; a couple of approaches that might help narrow your search include:
- ask a solid retailer in Chicago to recommend some selections, given the same information you have included in your posting. Then buy a couple of bottles of each and try them with small orders of the same foods you intend to use at the wedding.
- Or do the work yourself: buy a couple of bottles of each of several candidates and sample them in a taste test at home. Some possible candidates that I recommend include Blaskstone Merlot (CA), a Riesling from the Mosel-Sahr-Ruhr region of Germany, and a Champagne such as Taittinger's Non-vintage (NV) or Veueve Cliquot Yellow Label (NV). But by all means, try them with the dishes you plan to serve them with well before the wedding, and adjust your choices as necessary.
The teriyaki and ginger components are the confusing issues here, and you might find in your taste test that merlot and Mosel are decidely not the wines you want with those foods.
Perhaps one of our food specialists will chime in with an opinion (we're usually not short of those around here.)
And Congratulations!