Boston's Italian wine list finally gets serious
Back Bay · Boston · Italian · Visit Website ↗
Updated August 2026
Reviewed by the RagingWine Tasting Desk · April 8, 2026
RagingWine reviewed La Padrona’s wine list and gave it The Rager — RagingWine’s Vibe-Check rating. How RagingWine reviews wine lists →
Wingman Metrics
You walk into La Padrona and the room itself tells you this isn't another red-sauce joint with a token Chianti on the menu. The wine list lands like a serious statement — 300 to 500 bottles deep, anchored hard in Piedmont and Tuscany, with names that make Italian wine nerds quietly lose their minds. Jason Percival is running the program and it shows.
This is one of the strongest Italian-focused lists in Boston, full stop. Piedmont gets the headliner treatment: Giacomo Conterno, Bruno Giacosa, and Gaja are all present for Barolo, and Barbaresco pulls in Ceretto alongside Gaja again. Tuscany holds its own with Biondi-Santi and Poggio di Sotto representing Brunello, while the Super Tuscans — Sassicaia, Ornellaia, Tignanello — cover the prestige bottles that every table celebrating something big will be reaching for. The list doesn't stray far outside Italy, which is a deliberate choice and a confident one; if you came here for Burgundy, you came to the wrong place, and that's fine.
Twenty to thirty-five options by the glass is genuinely impressive for a program this Italy-focused, and the pricing runs $14 to $22 — reasonable given the room and the caliber of the cellar. We'd push hard for the staff to keep rotating these picks rather than letting them calcify into a static list, but the raw selection is there.
Chianti Classico Riserva (Felsina) — $14–$22 by the glass
Felsina's Riserva is a proper Sangiovese with the kind of structure and depth that earns it a spot at any serious Italian table. At glass-pour pricing in a room this elevated, it's the honest play — especially alongside the in-house pastas.
Barolo Bussia (Aldo Conterno)
Everyone orders the Giacomo Conterno or reaches for Gaja because the names are familiar. Aldo Conterno's Bussia is the quieter giant on this list — a single-vineyard Barolo that rewards the curious drinker willing to look one line further down the page.
Sassicaia (Tenuta San Guido)
Sassicaia is a great wine. It is also one of the most widely distributed prestige bottles in the world, which means restaurants charge accordingly and then some. At La Padrona, the markup on the Super Tuscans reaches the point where you're paying heavily for the label. The money is better spent going deeper into the Barolo or Brunello section.
Barbaresco (Angelo Gaja) + Seared scallops finished in saffron butter
This sounds counterintuitive — big Nebbiolo with scallops — but Gaja's Barbaresco carries enough acidity and floral lift to cut through that rich saffron butter without bulldozing the seafood. It's the kind of pairing that makes the table go quiet for a second.
The Bottom Line
La Padrona has built one of the most committed Italian wine programs in Boston, and the Wine Spectator Best of Award of Excellence it picked up in 2024 is earned. The markups on the trophy bottles are real, but if you know where to look on this list, you eat and drink very well.
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Crowd Pleasers
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Acceptable
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