Auberge du Soleil – Bistro & Bar

You open the wine list at Auberge du Soleil's Bistro & Bar and immediately understand you're not in a normal restaurant. More than 40 wines available by the glass — not a typo — spanning Napa cabs, Grand Cru Champagne, Burgundy premiers crus, and a Finger Lakes Riesling that has no business being this far west. The list signals that someone here is paying attention and has strong opinions about what you should be drinking with your charcuterie board on that terrace.

The BTG program alone covers more ground than most restaurants' full bottle lists: you're getting Sancerre from Chavignol, Châteauneuf-du-Pape, St-Émilion Grand Cru, and a Givry 1er Cru alongside a deep California bench that stretches from Dry Creek Zinfandel to Alban Vineyards Syrah out of Edna Valley. The Napa-forward bias is exactly what you'd expect given the address, but the Old World thread — Loire, Burgundy, Bordeaux, Rhône, Champagne — keeps things from feeling like a regional vanity project. There are genuine surprises here: Hillick & Hobbs Dry Riesling from Seneca Lake and a Pinot Blanc from the Pfalz suggest a curator who gets bored easily, and that's a compliment. The gaps are real — no mention of Italian or Spanish bottles, and bottle pricing for the Bistro specifically is murky — but the breadth on the glass menu alone earns serious respect.

Forty-plus pours by the glass is genuinely rare territory, and the quality level doesn't drop off the way you'd expect at that volume. You can go Grand Cru Champagne from Ambonnay one round, pivot to a Gallica Estate Rosé from down the road in St. Helena the next, and land on a Russian River Pinot Noir to close — all without touching a bottle. Rotation data isn't publicly confirmed, but a list this curated at a property with a Michelin-starred sibling restaurant suggests these aren't gathering dust.