Delaney's Steak Seafood Wine
Madison's Old Guard Still Holds Its Own
West Madison · Madison · Steakhouse, Seafood · Visit Website ↗
Reviewed March 28, 2026
Wingman Metrics
First Impression
The wine list at Delaney's reads exactly like you'd expect from a 50-year-old Madison steakhouse — heavy on California, comfortable with itself, and not particularly interested in surprising you. It's a safe list for a safe crowd, which isn't a knock so much as an honest description of what they're going for.
Selection Deep Dive
The 150-300 bottle list leans hard into Napa and Sonoma, with Bordeaux making a token appearance to signal seriousness. You'll find the usual suspects — Caymus, Jordan, Rombauer — doing their reliable thing, and a nod toward Willamette Valley for the Pinot crowd. There's no real adventurousness here: no natural wine, no grower Champagne, nothing from the Southern Hemisphere or Old World outside of France. If you want to go off-script, this isn't your list.
By the Glass
With 15-25 options by the glass, there's enough breadth to find something that works without committing to a bottle. The pours skew predictable — expect Rombauer Chardonnay and Meiomi Pinot Noir to anchor the white and red sides respectively. Rotation appears minimal; this looks like a set-it-and-forget-it BTG program rather than anything dynamic.
Jordan Cabernet Sauvignon — $80
Jordan consistently punches above its price point as a producer, and in a steakhouse context where everything around it is marked up aggressively, it's the most defensible bottle on the list. It's a known quantity that won't let you down next to a ribeye.
Willamette Valley Pinot Noir
Most tables here are ordering Cabs, which means any Willamette Valley Pinot on the list gets overlooked. If Delaney's is sourcing from a decent Oregon producer, it's often the most interesting and food-versatile bottle in a list this California-centric — worth asking the server what they've got.
Meiomi Pinot Noir
Meiomi retails around $18-20 at your local grocery store. At steakhouse markups, you're paying three to four times that for a mass-market, sweetened-up Pinot that doesn't belong at these price levels. It's a crowd-pleaser that crowds can please themselves with at home.
Caymus Cabernet Sauvignon + Prime Rib
Look, Caymus is built for exactly this moment — a big, plush Napa Cab with enough fruit and oak to stand up to a thick cut of prime rib. It's not subtle, but neither is a $50 slab of beef, and the two make sense together in a way that's hard to argue with.
✔️ The Bottom Line
Delaney's is exactly what it is: a dependable, old-school Madison steakhouse where the wine list serves the food rather than the other way around. You won't discover anything new here, but you won't be embarrassed by what you order either — just watch the markup and steer toward the California heavy-hitters they clearly know best.
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