Serious Italian Cellar in a Ski Town
Vail Village · Vail · Italian · Visit Website ↗
Reviewed by the RagingWine Tasting Desk · July 28, 2026
RagingWine reviewed La Nonna’s wine list and gave it The Reliable — RagingWine’s Vibe-Check rating. How RagingWine reviews wine lists →
Take Vibe Match and we’ll tell you what to order here.
Wingman Metrics
The wine list at La Nonna hits you like a well-curated Italian-American love letter — Barolo adjacents, Super Tuscans, and enough Napa heavyweights to keep the ski crowd happy. At 120 labels, it's not massive, but it's doing real work. The price ceiling is sky-high, which sets the tone fast.
The Italian section is the clear star here — Produttori del Barbaresco Riserva 'Asili', Gaja Barbaresco, Biondi-Santi Brunello, Ornellaia, and Tignanello all make the cut, which is a genuinely strong showing for a mountain-town trattoria. The California side isn't just an afterthought either: Far Niente, Opus One, and Saxum's James Berry Vineyard fill out the Cab and beyond category. There are a few wild-card picks tucked in — the Emidio Pepe Montepulciano d'Abruzzo 2001 is a legitimate stunner that most tables will walk right past. Gaps exist: the by-the-glass program is undocumented and Burgundy, Rhône, and Southern Italian are largely missing.
By-the-glass specifics aren't published, which is frustrating for a list of this ambition — it's hard to know if the pours rotate or if you're stuck with three defaults. Given the bottle-heavy focus and high floor prices, we'd ask the server directly before assuming there's a glass worth ordering. If there's a Deltetto Roero Arneis or something from their Piedmont inventory poured by the glass, jump on it.
Produttori del Barbaresco Riserva 'Asili' 2019 — $225
One of the most respected co-op Barbarescos on the planet, the Asili cru is iron-fisted elegance. Retail on this typically runs $90-$110, so yes, the markup stings — but relative to everything else on this list, it's the bottle that actually delivers the most wine per dollar. Order it, let it breathe, drink it with the mushroom ravioli.
Emidio Pepe Montepulciano d'Abruzzo 2001
A 2001 Emidio Pepe on a restaurant list in Vail is genuinely unexpected. Pepe is one of Italy's most uncompromising, biodynamic, zero-intervention producers, and a wine this old from that house is a rare find outside of serious wine bars. Most tables will skip straight to Tignanello or Opus One without a second glance. That's a mistake.
Ruinart Blanc de Blancs NV (375ml)
Two hundred and fifty dollars for a half-bottle of Ruinart. That's the kind of pricing that makes you put the list down and order an Aperol Spritz. Ruinart is lovely Champagne, but a 375ml at that price point is a Vail Village tax we're not willing to pay.
Produttori del Barbaresco Riserva 'Asili' 2019 + Mushroom Ravioli
Nebbiolo and mushrooms is one of those combinations that feels almost too obvious — earthy, woodsy, with enough tannin structure to cut through the richness of pasta in butter or cream. The Asili vineyard brings a floral lift that keeps the whole thing from getting too heavy. This is the pairing you came to Vail for.
✔️ The Bottom Line
La Nonna brings a legitimately serious Italian cellar to a town where most restaurants are content to coast on their ski-town captive audience — and that deserves real credit. The markups are steep across the board, but the bones of the list are strong enough that the right bottle makes the whole evening.
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