Tim McEnery, Founder and CEO of Cooper's Hawk Winery & Restaurants Nominated for Wine Enthusiast's 2018 Innovator of the Year Award

CHICAGO, Sept. 10, 2018 /PRNewswire-PRWeb/ -- Cooper's Hawk Winery & Restaurants, a lifestyle brand centered around food and wine, is pleased to announce that Wine Enthusiast has named Tim McEnery, the company's Founder & CEO, one of five global finalists for the Wine Enthusiast 2018 Innovator of the Year Award. The Award is part of the publication's 19th Annual Wine Star Awards.

McEnery's nomination is a significant milestone in a trailblazing career that has been at once daringly entrepreneurial and purposefully inclusive. His breakthrough thinking is built upon an intersectional model that encompasses both the winemaking and restaurant industries. Each of the company's restaurants feature a dining room, tasting room, artisan market and private event spaces – offering guests a Napa-style experience in their own back yards. The Cooper's Hawk business is built on a direct-to-consumer model that connects the wine maker directly to the wine drinker – which makes wine more accessible and empowers the consumer to discover and explore new tastes as they embark on their individual wine journeys.

Yet Tim's greatest innovation might just be the Cooper's Hawk 300,000+-member Wine Club, which was born in Illinois, a state that many would label a "wine desert". The antithesis of the subscription-based monthly delivery model, the Cooper's Hawk Wine Club is a community of like-minded people who share experiences centered around wine and food. Members participate in the wine lifestyle by receiving unique limited release wines of the month, attending private events with celebrity chefs, winemakers and other luminaries, and traveling to wine regions around the world. Additionally, Cooper's Hawk is sharing the prestige of being the official wine of the SAG Awards®. In recognition of the SAG Awards' Silver Anniversary in 2019, Cooper's Hawk has developed a custom blend to debut as the January Wine of the Month, which will be served exclusively to guests at the 25th SAG Awards ceremony, Wine Club members and restaurant patrons.

"This is an incredible honor," says Cooper's Hawk Founder & CEO Tim McEnery. "I am grateful to Wine Enthusiast for recognizing our accomplishments. I couldn't be more thankful for the collaborative efforts of the entire company, who deliver on our brand promise every single day. It is humbling to be nominated amongst a group of such impressive innovators."

The Wine Star Awards are regarded as some of the most important in the wine industry. Each year, the editors of Wine Enthusiast honor the exceptional individuals and companies that have made outstanding achievements and contributions in the wine and spirits world. The magazine will announce the winner on November 8, and the Wine Star Awards gala will be held on January 28, 2019 at Nobu Eden Roc in Miami, FL.

The other nominees for Innovator of the Year are Ryan Harms. Marc Noel, Terry Wheatley and Sebastian Zuccardi.

About Cooper's Hawk Winery & Restaurants
Founded in 2005 by CEO Tim McEnery, Cooper's Hawk Winery & Restaurants is built upon the belief that food and wine hold the power to forge lasting connections. A lifestyle brand focused on creating memorable moments that enrich lives, Cooper's Hawk is the 34th largest winery in the U.S. and home to over 300,000 Wine Club Members. The concept is a fusion of familiar elements – winery, modern casual restaurant, Napa-style tasting room and artisanal retail market – that has combined to create an entirely new hospitality experience. Cooper's Hawk has been recognized as one of the five fastest-growing restaurant chains (Nation's Restaurant News and Kalinowski Equity Research), has won over 500 awards for its wine and has been named the Official Wine of the Screen Actors Guild® Awards through 2020. Cooper's Hawk wines are sourced, blended, aged, bottled and distributed exclusively through Cooper's Hawk.

SOURCE Cooper's Hawk Winery