Cooper's Hawk Winery & Restaurant

Walking into Cooper's Hawk in Clive feels like stumbling into a Napa tasting room that got lost on I-80 and decided to stay. The retail market, wine club signage, and tasting bar up front signal immediately that wine is the point here — not an afterthought. It's a chain, yes, but one that takes its own product seriously enough to give it a real stage.

The list runs 50-80 bottles deep and skews heavily toward Cooper's Hawk's own house-produced labels, which is both the strength and the ceiling of the program. You'll find California, Oregon, Washington, Italy, and Argentina represented, which covers the bases for mainstream tastes without pushing anyone too far outside their comfort zone. The real curiosity here is the presence of Orange Muscat and Black Muscat — genuine oddities on a suburban Des Moines list that suggest someone at HQ has at least a passing interest in the unusual. Don't expect a deep regional exploration of Burgundy or the Rhône, but within its lane, the list is cohesive and the wines are consistently made.

This is where Cooper's Hawk genuinely earns its keep — the by-the-glass program is enormous, reportedly running 40-60 options, which is borderline absurd for a restaurant at this price point in this zip code. Nearly everything on the bottle list is accessible by the glass, which means you can graze across styles without committing to a full bottle. Rotation ties to the wine club's monthly selections, so the BTG menu actually shifts, which keeps regulars from drinking the same Chardonnay every visit.