Finger Lakes in a bottle, no pretense
Downtown / South Main Street · Canandaigua · Wine Bar · Visit Website ↗
Reviewed by the RagingWine Tasting Desk · July 26, 2026
RagingWine reviewed Acquilano Wine Cellars’s wine list and gave it The Wild Card — RagingWine’s Vibe-Check rating. How RagingWine reviews wine lists →
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Wingman Metrics
Walking into Acquilano feels less like a wine bar and more like wandering into the winery itself — because that's essentially what it is. The list is short, everything is house-made, and the whole operation is unapologetically Finger Lakes. There's no attempt to be anything other than what it is, and that confidence is refreshing.
The list clocks in at three or four house labels — Riesling, Cabernet Franc, Chardonnay, and a Dessert Wine — all estate-bottled and laser-focused on what the Finger Lakes does best. You're not getting a globe-trotting wine menu here; you're getting a producer's tight edit of their own work. The Cab Franc is the most interesting pour on the list given how well the region handles that grape, and the Riesling is a no-brainer crowd-pleaser. The Dessert Wine is the wildcard that most tables will overlook, which is a shame.
The primary format here is the four-wine tasting flight, priced at $10–$14 per flight pour, which is an excellent low-stakes way to work through the entire lineup. Full bottle pours are available at roughly $30 a bottle for house wines. It's a simple by-the-glass setup — don't come expecting a rotating BTG program.
Acquilano Riesling NV — $30
Retails around $20 and pours at $30 on premise — a near non-existent markup by restaurant standards. For a Finger Lakes Riesling in a dedicated tasting room, this is a genuine steal.
Acquilano Dessert Wine
Most people skip dessert wines on principle, but Finger Lakes dessert wines are genuinely world-class and wildly underrated. This one gets ignored at nearly every table — order it.
Acquilano Chardonnay
Nothing wrong with it, but if you're at a Finger Lakes tasting room and you reach for the Chardonnay over the Riesling or Cab Franc, you're playing it too safe. The region's strengths lie elsewhere.
Acquilano Cabernet Franc + Wine & Chocolate Pairing Flight
Cab Franc's red fruit, herbaceous edge, and soft tannins make it the ideal counterpart to dark chocolate — and this pairing flight was basically designed for it. It's the obvious move and the right one.
🎲 The Bottom Line
Acquilano isn't trying to be a destination wine bar — it's a Finger Lakes producer pouring its own work in a casual Main Street setting, and it does that with charm and absurdly fair prices. If you're in Canandaigua and you skip this, you've made a mistake.
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Crowd Pleasers
Fair
Basic Stemmed
Willing but Green
Set & Forget
Acceptable
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Small but Thoughtful
Fair
Basic Stemmed
Knowledgeable & Friendly
Seasonal Rotation
Proper
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Crowd Pleasers
Steep
Basic Stemmed
Willing but Green
Set & Forget
Acceptable
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Crowd Pleasers
Fair
Basic Stemmed
Rotating Cast
Set & Forget
Acceptable
Canandaigua Lake waterfront · Canandaigua · Hotel Restaurant / American
Rose Tavern isn't trying to be a destination wine bar, but it's got the bones of one — a sommelier, a thoughtful local-first list, and a glass program that lets you actually explore it. Markups on the name brands are punishing, but stick to the Finger Lakes section and you're drinking well at a lake view that most wine lists couldn't dream of.
Small but Thoughtful
Steep
Varietal Specific
Knowledgeable & Friendly
Set & Forget
Proper
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Flavors isn't a wine destination, but it's not pretending to be one either — the list is honest, the prices are fair, and the Fox Run Riesling alone justifies ordering a bottle. Come for the food, drink the Riesling, and don't overthink it.
Plays It Safe
Fair
Basic Stemmed
Willing but Green
Set & Forget
Acceptable
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Small but Thoughtful
Steal
Basic Stemmed
Knowledgeable & Friendly
Set & Forget
Proper
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The Wine Loft at Seasons is doing more with 16 labels than a lot of places do with 60 — the Coravin access and a handful of legit producers make it worth a stop in Durango. It's not destination wine drinking, but it's a genuinely solid option when the mountain air has you ready for a good glass.
Small but Thoughtful
Fair
Basic Stemmed
Willing but Green
Set & Forget
Acceptable
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Luis Wine Bar is the kind of place you'd take someone visiting San Luis Obispo to prove that Central Coast wine is the real deal — not flashy, not overpriced, just honest pours from good local producers. Tuesday half-price bottles seal the deal.
Small but Thoughtful
Fair
Basic Stemmed
Willing but Green
Occasional
Acceptable
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