Oak Park

The list lands with the confidence of a restaurant that knows exactly what it is — a grown-up dining room on Ingersoll Avenue that takes wine seriously. Two hundred to three hundred-plus bottles, a Best of Award of Excellence from Wine Spectator earned in its first full year, and a by-the-glass program that actually gives you options beyond the house pour. This is not what you expect to find in a strip of Des Moines neighborhood restaurants.

California and Bordeaux are the twin pillars here, and Oak Park leans into both without apology. You've got Stag's Leap Wine Cellars and Duckhorn Vineyards anchoring the domestic side alongside the heavy hitters — Caymus, Jordan, and Silver Oak — while the French shelves carry genuine weight with Chateau Margaux, Chateau Lynch-Bages, and Opus One sitting near the top of the price range. The list doesn't wander far into Burgundy, Rhône, or the natural wine rabbit hole, so if you're hunting skin-contact Slovenian Ribolla, look elsewhere. But what Oak Park does, it does with conviction and enough depth to reward a second visit.

Twenty to thirty-five pours by the glass is genuinely impressive for Des Moines, and the $12–$18 range suggests they're not just cycling cheap bulk wine through the tap. The spread appears to track the bottle list's California-and-France focus, which means you're likely getting a real pour of something worth drinking rather than a mystery Chardonnay from a bag-in-box. We'd love to see more rotation and a few curveball selections, but the sheer count earns respect.