Along with whichever Missouri wine club we are trying out at the moment, we like to supplement that with a larger wine club. We've consider the Wall Street Journal Wine Club and Zagat Wine Club, but we recently stumbled across something a little more local and have been very pleased with it. While driving around Town and Country, MO, I noticed a new sign that read, Cooper's Hawk Winery & Restaurant. Of course, I immediately called Michael to ask if he was aware of a new winery in town and to tell him to meet me there as soon as possible.
Upon visiting the winery, we found out that it was started near Chicago, IL in 2005 and has been growing ever since. The grapes and fruit they use come from vineyards in California, Oregon, and Washington and are delivered to their private winery where they make their award-winning wines. Yes, we were a little disappointed to find out this wasn't a Missouri winery, but we couldn't ignore the quality wines, top-rated customer service, and perfectly paired menu. We were hooked!
Cooper's Hawk offers multiple tasting options. The Standard, Lux, and Sweet Tastes all rotated monthly. With over 45 wines, these tastings never get old. Our favorite part of the tasting is the option to add a truffle from the bakery for just $1. We highly recommend the dark chocolate truffles! After our first pairing, we looked over the Wine of the Month Club brochure and knew we wanted to be a part of it.
Since we're a couple we went with the 2 bottles a month Variety option for $35.99. This includes a standard monthly tasting for each of us ($14 value), 2 bottles of wine a month, a 10% discount on retail wines and carry out orders, a free entrée on our birthdays, and invites to Members-Only events. The flexibility of this club really stood out to us. We pick up our wine bottles every month from the winery, do our free tastings, and usually stay for dinner. We have the option to stick to the suggested tastings or trade out anything we don't feel like sampling. We can do the same with our bottles. They have suggested wines of the month, but we can pick and chose the bottles we really want.
We went to our first Members-Only club event in May. The Seis de Mayo dinner (the day after Cinco de Mayo) was a four-course meal served in the festively decorated private barrel room. We were greeted with red Sangrias and mingled with other wine club members. Each dish was paired with wine and came with some history on the holiday of Cinco de Mayo and games for prizes. We left that evening stuffed full of fantastic food and each with a bottle of wine.
So far this wine club has exceeded our expectations, and we continue to rave about it to anyone who will listen.
The moral of the story is... Join a wine club!
