Schnitzel and Grüner in the Rockies
Vail Village · Vail · Alpine German/Austrian and Swiss · Visit Website ↗
Reviewed by the RagingWine Tasting Desk · July 28, 2026
RagingWine reviewed Almresi’s wine list and gave it The Wild Card — RagingWine’s Vibe-Check rating. How RagingWine reviews wine lists →
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You're in Vail, surrounded by the usual steakhouse-and-chardonnay suspects, and then Almresi hands you a list anchored by Grüner Veltliner and Alsatian Riesling. It's a genuine alpine wine program inside a wood-beamed chalet that actually means it. The whole thing feels like a small act of defiance against the resort wine default.
Seventeen labels isn't deep, but the curation is doing real work here. Austria shows up with Weingut Stadt Krems Grüner Veltliner, Germany brings the Thörle Trocken Riesling and Becker Pinot Noir, and Alsace weighs in with the Helfrich Gewürztraminer — a lineup that maps directly to the food on the menu. Italy gets a nod with the Trediberri Langhe Nebbiolo and the Tiefenbrunner Chardonnay from Alto Adige, which fits the alpine theme without feeling forced. The Esterhazy Klimt 'The Kiss' Red Blend is an interesting inclusion — Austrian red that most Vail diners have never seen. The gaps are mostly in depth: one producer per region, no older vintages, nothing to linger over if you're a serious bottle hunter.
Every bottle on the list pours by the glass, which is either generous or a sign the program isn't thinking hard about freshness. At $15–$18 a glass, the pricing is honest for Vail — you won't feel robbed. The rotation doesn't seem to change much, but when the core list is this on-theme, a static pour menu isn't the disaster it would be elsewhere.
Trediberri Langhe Nebbiolo DOC — $17/glass, $70/bottle
Trediberri is a respected name in the Langhe — this is real Nebbiolo from a solid producer, not a grocery-store placeholder. At $70 a bottle in a Vail ski village restaurant, that's a fair deal for something with actual structure and a story behind it.
Thörle Trocken Riesling
Most tables here are ordering the Prosecco or the Champagne and moving on. The Thörle Trocken Riesling from Rheinhessen is the wine that actually belongs at this table — dry, precise, with the kind of acidity that cuts right through a Wiener Schnitzel. It's being ignored and it shouldn't be.
Laurent-Perrier Champagne Brut
At $105 a bottle, the Laurent-Perrier isn't a rip-off by Champagne standards, but it's a reflex order in a room where the Grüner and the Riesling are doing something more interesting. You're in an Austrian chalet — save the Champagne for somewhere that built the list around it.
Weingut Stadt Krems Grüner Veltliner + Käsefondue
This is the obvious move and it's obvious for a reason. The Grüner's white pepper snap and clean acidity cut through the fat of a bubbling pot of alpine cheese in a way that red wine simply won't. It's the same pairing Swiss and Austrian wine regions figured out decades ago.
🎲 The Bottom Line
Almresi isn't trying to be a wine destination — it's trying to be an honest alpine restaurant, and the wine list reflects exactly that. If you're eating the fondue or the schnitzel, this list has your back in ways that most Vail wine lists simply don't.
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