Schnitzel and Grüner in the Rockies
Vail Village · Vail · Alpine German/Austrian and Swiss · Visit Website ↗
Reviewed July 28, 2026 · How we review
RagingWine reviewed Almresi’s wine list and gave it The Wild Card — RagingWine’s Vibe-Check rating. How RagingWine reviews wine lists →
Wingman Metrics
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.
· Vail · Gastropub
Here's the one concrete reason to pay attention to Capitol Public House's wine program: Wednesday half-price bottles. That single policy can turn an unremarkable list into a genuinely good deal. If you're a local in Eagle or passing through on a Wednesday, plan accordingly — even a middle-of-the-road bottle at half price is worth the stop. For everything else, manage expectations and let the whiskey bar do the talking.
Crowd Pleasers
Fair
Basic Stemmed
Willing but Green
Occasional
Acceptable
· Vail · Latin-inspired small plates
Barriosocial is doing something genuinely unexpected in Vail: a wine list that reflects the food's Iberian DNA instead of defaulting to crowd-pleasing New World reds and overpriced Champagne by the bottle. The by-the-glass program alone — 20 options, fair pricing, real producers — is worth the visit. If you're eating in the mountains and actually care what's in your glass, this is the room.
Deep & Eclectic
Fair
Basic Stemmed
Rotating Cast
Set & Forget
Acceptable
· Vail · Hotel Bar & New American
The Lobby Bar is fine — and in Vail, fine is doing a lot of heavy lifting. The list is short, static, and priced for people who just got off the mountain and aren't reading the bill too closely. If you're here, order the Grochau Pinot and call it a night; don't come looking for discovery.
Crowd Pleasers
Steep
Basic Stemmed
Rotating Cast
Set & Forget
Acceptable
· Vail · Italian
La Nonna is an Italian restaurant in a ski resort town that somehow assembled one of the more thoughtful grower Champagne lists in Colorado — and that's genuinely worth acknowledging. Markups run steep across the board, which is par for the Vail course, but if you order smart (Mignon, Larmandier-Bernier, the Correggia sparkler), you'll drink better than almost anywhere on the mountain. Come for the pasta, stay for the bubbles.
Surprising Depth
Steep
Basic Stemmed
Rotating Cast
Set & Forget
Acceptable
· Vail · New American
Larkspur has the bones of a Reliable — a thoughtful regional spread, a polished dining room, and a kitchen putting out serious plates like the Creekstone Farms strip loin and Ahi tuna crudo that deserve equally serious wine. We just don't have enough list detail to hand you a confident pick or warn you off a specific bottle. If you're heading here, ask the server what's drinking well right now and set a firm price ceiling before you open the book — Vail markups are real and they are not shy.
Solid Range
Steep
Basic Stemmed
Willing but Green
Set & Forget
Acceptable
· Vail · Steakhouse
Russell's isn't trying to be a wine destination and doesn't need to be — but the list is better than the room probably demands. Fair pricing, a genuine global reach, and twenty pours by the glass make this a steakhouse wine program worth engaging with. Order the Fincas de Ganuza, skip the Laurent Perrier, and leave the mountain resort markup where it belongs: on the cocktail list.
Solid Range
Fair
Basic Stemmed
Rotating Cast
Set & Forget
Acceptable
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