Growth Spurt Ahead: Wide River Winery Expands Production

by Jenna Blount CLINTON — The grapes in her vineyard and the orange flowers outside her winery’s entrance point to one of Dorothy O’Brien’s passions. “My main interest is growing things,” says O’Brien, an attorney who over the past 25 years has honed her growing skills as the CEO of Wide River Winery, north of Clinton. That same skill holds... Read More →

Exploring the Quad Cities

Tours, Cruises, Museums, Outdoor Activities Lure Travelers To Mississippi River Shores Of Western Illinois, Eastern Iowa By Randy Mink | on October 13, 2021 Excerpt:  On a bluff overlooking the Mississippi is Clinton’s Wide River Winery, where we enjoyed wines with snacks on a peaceful deck set high above a ravine. The owner, Dorothy O’Brien, is a lawyer, and her husband is a retired... Read More →

Two Davenport Properties Earn Iowa Historic Preservation Awards | Quad Cities

Jonathan Turner | June 9th 2021 Peter Lampe House, 1128 Mound St., Village of East Davenport This award recognizes outstanding preservation of a small historic preservation project using State Historic Preservation Tax Credit Program incentives. For purposes of this award, small projects are defined as those projects having total qualified costs of $750,000 or less. Davenport’s Peter Lampe House, ca. 1856, is... Read More →

14 Best Stops To Explore Along Iowa’s Lincoln Highway | Travel Awaits

By Tim Trudell | March 31 2021 PASPHOTOGRAPHY / SHUTTERSTOCK Clinton Explore Clinton’s historic role in the lumber industry during a visit to the Sawmill Museum, which includes exhibits reliving the history, such as an authentic lumber saw and animatronic lumber barons sharing their tales of the lumber transported downriver from Wisconsin to the eastern Iowa city. Nature enthusiasts enjoy visiting Bickelhaupt Arboretum, a... Read More →

9 quaint places to eat, drink and rest in Iowa | Des Moines Register

Susan Stapleton | September 6th 2016 Wide River Winery Head to LeClaire on the banks of the Mississippi River to taste the wines at Wide River and spend the night at the inn, a one bedroom with room for four. While the inn doesn’t offer food, the room comes equipped with a kitchen. Owner Dorothy O’Brien started her winery in... Read More →

Iowa Wine Trail Shows Off Growing Industry | Milwaukee Journal Sentinel

By Brian E. Clark | April 23rd, 2016 As anyone who’s driven across the Hawkeye State knows, Iowa has mile upon mile of fields of corn and soybeans that will soon be sprouting. But it also has hundreds of acres of vineyards growing maréchal Foch, La Crescent, Brianna, Marquette, Frontenac, and other grapes that can withstand the Midwest’s sometimes brutally frigid... Read More →

Investment comes to Davenport’s East Village

Barb Ickes, Quad City Times | September 2016 A new thrown-around nickname for the Village of East Davenport is “Little LeClaire.” Some Village merchants are cool with that. Others say the Village is too different from LeClaire to draw a comparison. Either way, the redevelopment boon in the Village bears a striking likeness to the renaissance upriver. Two obvious catalysts... Read More →

Row of new East Village businesses line 12th Street in Davenport

Barb Ickes, Quad City Times | September 2016 One of the most dramatic recent-memory changes in the Village of East Davenport is snuggled against the railroad bridge at Mound and East 12th streets. Clinton-based couple Dorothy O’Brien and Charles Pelton turned a tired and structurally questionable Village cottage into a showplace of a wine-tasting room. A large deck on the... Read More →

Wide River Winery

By Sharon Wren, Gold Book | July 2014 What began as a hobby for Dorothy O’Brien, making wine for family and friends, has turned into a thriving business called Wide River Winery, with two beautiful locations in Clinton and LeClaire. What began as a hobby for Dorothy O’Brien, making wine for family and friends, has turned into a thriving business... Read More →

Iowa Winery Opens New Tasting Room

August 2013 History buffs, “American Picker” fans, shoppers and Great River Road wanderers can now sample locally made, award-winning wine in historic downtown LeClaire, Iowa. Wide River Winery, located in Clinton, has recently opened an additional tasting room. Nestled in the bluffs along the Mississippi River in Clinton, the original winery and tasting room is already an area favorite of... Read More →

Good Times, Great Wines!

May 2013 Come visit us at our new tasting room location in Le Claire, IA. Live music every Friday from 5 – 8 PM!

Aged To Perfection

By Jeniece Smith, Bridges Magazine | May 2010 It’s been five years since Dorothy O’Brien first decided to share the fruits of her labor from organic gardening and grape growing with others, and she says she’s learned a great deal along the way. “It morphed into much more of a focus on wine,” said O’Brien, sole owner of Wide River... Read More →

Wine, Grapes and View on Wide Point of River

By Barbara Rasko, Make Mine Wine Magazine | March 2009 Wide River Winery visitors can view the Mississippi River, hike in the woods or picnic on the deck. And how about learning about organic grape growing? How about tasting award winning wine? Sounds like a good plan for wine lovers in Clinton, Iowa. Dorothy O’Brien’s third career sprung from her... Read More →