Cheers is dedicated to delivering hospitality professionals the information, insights and data necessary to drive their beverage business by covering trends and innovations in operations, merchandising, service and training.
Issue link: http://read.dmtmag.com/i/725097
www.cheersonline.com 19 September 2016 • Three years later, McEnery, then 29, opened the first Cooper's Hawk Winery & Restaurant in Orland Park, IL, where the company is now headquartered. Cooper's Hawk today counts locations in Florida, Illinois, Indiana, Missouri, Maryland, Ohio, Wisconsin and Virginia. A Coconut Creek, FL, location is scheduled to open in November; four to five additional units are slated for 2017. The brand's focus remains on making wine-and-food pairings approachable and understandable. All locations include large, onsite tasting rooms (922 sq. ft. on average), plus menus that pair each plate with a specific wine. PRIVATE-LABEL WINES Cooper's Hawk sells its wines in its restaurants and tasting rooms, and directly to members of the wine club. None of the bottles are distributed to outside businesses. "We're basically the wine version of a brew pub," says winemaker Rob Warren. The company does not grow its own grapes; it buys them from about 20 west coast wineries and trucks them to a 32,000-sq.- ft. facility in Countryside, IL. Cooper's Hawk will bring in international vineyards for special bottlings a few times each year. These might include malbec from Argentina, sangiovese from Italy, and varietals from New Zealand and Australia. McEnery and Warren select the wineries for these bottlings, and are heavily involved in the process. Warren oversees production of about 425,000 cases of Cooper's Hawk wine a year. His wines typically age for six to 18 months in oak barrels. Partner vineyards are selectively chosen for their regions, the structures and aromatics of their grapes, production capabilities and their attitudes. "We're very persnickety. We want to be in control of our grapes once we get them, and that's a passion we want to share with the venues we chose," Warren explains. "When you tour a vineyard and meet the people there, you can tell pretty quickly how much they really care about what they're doing." Once a winery is onboard, its harvested grapes are loaded into refrigerated trucks and driven to Cooper's Hawk's facility. Fruit usually arrives two to three weeks after harvest; it's then destemmed, crushed, fermented, aged, blended and bottled. A WIDE RANGE OF VARIETALS The many styles Cooper's Hawk produces run the gamut. From sparkling rosé, prosecco and moscato, to sauvignon blanc, chardonnay and gewürztraminer, to pinot noir, shiraz and petite syrah. All these and more are available in the restaurants by the glass for $6.50 to $8.75, and by the bottle for $25.99 to $30.99. For dessert, Cooper's Hawk makes Ice Wine ($9.50 for a glass, $37.99 for a 375-ml. bottle) and Nightjar, a port-style wine ($8 a glass; $27.99 a bottle). There are also lux offerings for those who want premium pours, including the Lux sparkling ($9.50 a glass, $37.99 a bottle) and the Lux pinot noir ($13 a glass; $47.99 a bottle). BALANCED WINE-PAIRING EXPERIENCES Winemaker Warren and Matt McMillin, vice president of culinary and beverage innovation, collaborate on the seasonally changing Cooper's Hawk menus. McMillin and Warren systematically match every dish with a specific wine identified on the menu by its BIN number. When pairing food and wine, they consider how many times each bottle appears on the menu. They try to get all the wines Cooper's Hawk's recommended menu pairings include the gnocchi carbonara with the Cooper's Hawk Lux chardonnay, left, and the red-wine-braised short ribs with the winery's cabernet zinfandel. "We're basically the wine version of a brew pub." — Rob Warren, Cooper's Hawk's winemaker