Des Moines' best-kept natural wine secret
Ingersoll Avenue · Des Moines · Vegetable-focused New American with Asian influence · Visit Website ↗
Reviewed June 20, 2026
Wingman Metrics
You don't expect to find Envinate and Ruppert-Leroy on a wine list in Des Moines, Iowa — and yet here we are. The list is short, maybe 40 bottles on a good day, but it reads like someone actually cares: natural-leaning, European-weighted, with a few Pacific Northwest ringers. It's the wine list equivalent of finding a great record shop in a strip mall.
The list leans hard into France, Spain, and Italy with a natural wine thread running through almost everything — this isn't Meiomi and Whispering Angel territory. Ribeira Sacra shows up with two Envinate bottles, Beaujolais gets a nod via Pierre-Marie Chermette, and Austria earns its seat with a Domäne Wachau Grüner Veltliner. The Ruppert-Leroy Champagne is a genuine outlier for a mid-sized Midwestern city — a biodynamic grower producer that most wine bars in bigger markets don't bother stocking. The gaps are real though: no serious depth by region, limited old-world exploration beyond the obvious anchors, and nothing that suggests a true cellar program.
Eight to twelve pours depending on the night, with prices landing between $10 and $16 — which is reasonable for the level of producer being poured. We'd expect the by-the-glass rotation to reflect the same natural-leaning philosophy as the bottle list. What we can't confirm is how often it rotates, but given the tasting menu format, the by-the-glass program feels more like an afterthought than a destination.
Ruppert-Leroy Champagne — $180
Yes, $180 is a lot of money. But Ruppert-Leroy is a biodynamic grower Champagne retailing around $80, and this is one of those bottles you simply don't encounter outside of serious wine cities. At 125% markup it's the least gouged bottle on the list — and drinking it with a vegetable-driven tasting menu is genuinely the move.
Envinate 'Lousas' Viñas de Aldea
Ribeira Sacra MencĂa from one of the most exciting producers working in Spain right now, and most tables walk right past it. It's granitic, saline, and bright — the kind of red that actually works with the lighter, Asian-inflected dishes on this menu without steamrolling them.
Domaine de la Pépière Muscadet Sèvre et Maine sur Lie
Pépière is a great producer and this is a genuinely good Muscadet — but at $64 for a bottle retailing at $20, that's a 220% markup on one of France's most humble appellations. Order it by the glass if it's available, or redirect that $64 toward the Chermette Beaujolais.
Pierre-Marie Chermette Beaujolais Gamay + Seasonal vegetable tasting course with Southeast Asian flavors
Chermette's Gamay is light, fruit-forward, and has just enough earthiness to ground the bright, acidic, umami-forward flavors that run through Harbinger's kitchen. It doesn't fight the food — it follows it.
🎲 The Bottom Line
Harbinger is doing something genuinely unusual for Des Moines: stocking producers that wine-literate diners in Chicago or Portland would recognize and respect. The markups are a real friction point — especially on the Muscadet and Grüner — but if you're eating the tasting menu anyway, a bottle of Ruppert-Leroy or Envinate elevates the whole night. Send your most adventurous friend here and tell them to skip the safe picks.
One wine list review, one adventure pick, one quick tip, and a personal note. Every week. Under 500 words.