Courtesy of Clover
Webster Groves will soon be buzzing about the new wine bar opening at Clover and the Bee (100 W. Lockwood) on Thursday through Saturday nights. The concept—which has been rebranded as Clover, Neighborhood Café & {Natural} Wine Bar—will continue to serve breakfast and lunch daily from 7 a.m.–2 p.m. Clover will open at 5 p.m. with a closing hour yet to be determined, though likely 10 or 11 p.m. Clover’s service style will be informal: a no reservations establishment where guests order food and drink at the counter.
The Concept
Courtesy of Clover
The new endeavor—simply called Clover—opens softly this weekend and in earnest next weekend, according to Mark Hinkle, co-owner of O+O Hospitality, the restaurant group that operates Olive + Oak, O+O Pizza, O+O Events, Perennial on Lockwood, and Clover and the Bee, all located along a two-block stretch of Lockwood Avenue in Webster Groves.
The wine bar will be a place “where people can enjoy a bottle of natural wine and some simple accompaniments," says Hinkle. "At Clover, a space we'd been using at night for events and pop-ups, we turned down the lights and lit some candles."
Clover features only “natural” wines, a new name for an old process describing unfiltered wines made using hand-picked grapes from biodynamic, organic, and/or sustainable vineyards. The one-page menu includes 26 wines broken in to four categories: bubbles, rosé and orange, white, and red—some marked with an icon to denote “funkiness,” which characterizes some naturally made wines.
Hinkle says the selections were sourced from small-batch producers in France, Italy, Austria, and Australia, as well as California, Oregon, and even a skin contact Vignoles from Missouri, Chandler Hill Marigold. “Natural wines run the gamut from normal tasting to unconventional and funky,” Hinkle says. “No matter what your preference is along that continuum, we feel our menu has you covered.”
The list includes selections from Stolpman, Bedrock, Chateau Brandeau, Selene, Vincent Paris, Forlorn Hope, Libertine, and Adroit. By-the-glass prices range from $10–$15, while bottles range from $40–$75, with the majority being priced around $50.
“There are probably 1000 natural wines available in Missouri right now,” Hinkle says. “I chose carefully, mainly from importers whose sole focus is naturally made wine."
Non-wine offerings include both standard and NA cocktails, as well as bottled beer from Perennial Artisan Ales and Side Project Brewing. Clover also features a short menu of beverage-friendly salty snacks, such as nuts, olives, sea salt potato chips, charcuterie, and cheese.
The Background
Natural wines have no additives, no chemicals, little or no sulfites, and use native yeasts (meaning no added yeast). Natural wines are unfined and unfiltered, meaning some will have a cloudy appearance. “It’s the old-school way of making wines,” Hinkle says, “the way all wines used to be made, often by one guy at one small vineyard who produces something very simple—and very good.”
Examples of natural wine include “orange” wine, made from white grapes fermented with their skins intact (called extended maceration); and “pétillant naturel” (commonly referred to as “pet nat”), a sparkling wine that’s bottled before primary fermentation is completed (also known as méthode ancestrale), which creates a more subtle carbonation. Oak barrels are not generally used for aging due to the flavor some say they impart on the wine. In fact, some natural wine is fermented in clay amphora pots, which have been used to make wine for millennia. And because sulfite-free wines tend to be more fragile over time, “most are meant to be consumed sooner rather than later,” Hinkle says.
It’s likely that the resurgence of natural wines grew out of the natural foods movement. “More and more people are concerned about what’s going into their bodies,” Hinkle says, “and that includes the liquids. At our restaurants, we’ve always been concerned with buying the cleanest raw products we can, so Clover’s wines fit right in with that philosophy.”
