I you want to feel like you’re doing something bougie while still on a budget, go chill at The Cave DSM. Situated at the very edge of downtown in a small building so nondescript you’d miss it if you weren’t looking for it (I nearly did), The Cave is a wine bar that might also be Des Moines’ most underrated music venue. On any given night, you can sip a modestly priced glass of natural wine — everything was either $11 or $12 when I went — nosh on some bar snacks, and listen to whatever musicians are nestled in the corner playing the piano or plugging into a PA.
What I love most about The Cave, though, is how accessible it is. Yes, they have wine, but they also have beer and NA beverages. There are gluten-free options on their small food menu. And co-owner Nick Leo and organizational wizard Angela Rauch make you feel like family when you sit down.
As someone with ADHD, I often get overwhelmed in large restaurants with huge menus. Going to The Cave, though, feels like sitting down in a friend’s living room and having them put on your favorite record while they pour you something nice to drink. They just want you to feel comfortable.
The refreshments
Marcona almonds, housemade baguettes, marinated anchovies and olives, za’atar flatbread, charcuterie plates — the “Snacks” served at The Cave aren’t your typical bar fare, complementing a beverage selection that’s atypical, too.
The Cave serves exclusively natural wine. Natural wine, which can also be called low-intervention wine, is exactly that: wine that’s left alone as much as possible during the fermentation process. While conventional wines can contain up to 72 additives to enhance the color, flavor and clarity of the wine, natural wine is unfiltered, has no additives, and is made from organic yeast and grapes. That also means there are fewer sulfites in natural wine — the preservatives are added to conventional wine throughout the winemaking process as a means to kill off yeast, but are also a fairly common allergen.
It’s more expensive to make natural wine and also potentially riskier for winemakers, as part of what additives do is standardize the flavor of each bottle. What that means, though, is that each bottle of wine at The Cave is going to be slightly different, even if it’s the same varietal.
Especially as someone with ADHD, that made my wine tasting experience fun and exciting. The night I was there, the menu only featured six wines, and Rauch let me try all of them. I started with an Argentinian malvasia from 2022 that the menu described as “light & bright / kumquat / sage / flint.” The other white on the menu, a sauvignon blanc they were out of, was described as “textured & mineral forward / tangerine / flowers / chalk.” I’d never seen words like “flint” and “chalk” used to describe something edible, and I was immediately intrigued.
For my second glass, I moved to a 2022 Bracchetto, a red described as “light & tart / black raspberry / violets / orange zest / dried roses.” All of the wines I tasted had a depth and complexity to them I hadn’t experienced before with conventional wine, and I loved how accessible The Cave made the ordering process. There’s nothing worse than trying to order a glass when the only description is “Chardonnay, 2022, France.” I don’t want to drink that. I do want to drink whatever the heck it is that tastes like flint.
The music
I went to The Cave several times over the course of writing this article, and every time I went I found something different. Most weekdays, it’s a wine bar spinning records. Most Fridays, it’s a classy little getaway where you can drink wine and toast the jazz musicians playing. And sometimes, it’s a full-blown venue with a touring band and a fog machine.
In mid-August, Fiona Moonchild, a post-punk band from Seattle, was playing the fifth show of their tour at The Cave. They jammed four musicians, a fog machine, flashing lights and their PA into a maybe 50-square-foot space at the front, putting on a mystical, Bowie-esque performance. My favorite — and the most quintessential Seattle — part was when guitarist Scott Yoder joked that they had put weed tincture in the fog machine instead of fog juice.
I used to run a music journalism website when I lived in Seattle, so it was a treat for me to get to see a band from my former home all the way out here in the smack-dab middle of the country. And it was also nice to see an androgynous West Coast hazy shoegaze band lighting up the local winery. I loved the intimacy of the setup and the juxtaposition of grungy, underground music paired with wine, which is typically thought of as a high-brow, mainstream beverage. It felt like the best parts of two worlds colliding.
This article was originally published in Little Village’s September 2024 issue.
