Oysters and Chardonnay, No Complaints Here
Downtown · Salt Lake City · Seafood and Raw Bar · Visit Website ↗
Reviewed June 13, 2026 · How we review
RagingWine reviewed Market Street Oyster Bar - South Temple’s wine list and gave it The Reliable — RagingWine’s Vibe-Check rating. How RagingWine reviews wine lists →
Wingman Metrics
The wine list at Market Street Oyster Bar does exactly what you'd expect from a lively seafood spot — it plays to the crowd and doesn't try to reinvent the wheel. You'll see familiar names front and center, which is either reassuring or a little deflating depending on how adventurous you came to be. Either way, there's enough here to drink well alongside a dozen oysters.
The list runs 40-70 bottles deep and leans hard on California and New Zealand with a nod to the Pacific Northwest — safe bets for a seafood-forward menu, but don't come looking for Muscadet or Chablis to match those half-shells the traditional way. Sonoma-Cutrer Russian River Ranches Chardonnay and Kim Crawford Sauvignon Blanc anchor the whites, which is fine but not exactly thrilling. Meiomi Pinot Noir shows up on the red side, which is the kind of wine that sells itself because it's been on every restaurant list in America for a decade. The gaps are real — no real old-world representation to speak of — but the hits land where they need to for this format.
Eight to fourteen pours by the glass gives you decent flexibility at the bar, and the selections skew appropriately toward whites and lighter styles that work with seafood. Rotation doesn't appear to be much of a priority here — this feels like a "set it and forget it" program rather than something a passionate beverage director is tinkering with monthly. That said, you won't be stuck nursing a bad pour.
Sonoma-Cutrer Russian River Ranches Chardonnay — $unknown
It's the most serious bottle on a list full of crowd-pleasers — proper Russian River fruit with enough acidity to hold up to crab cakes and rich seafood without going flabby. If the price is in line with the mid-range tier here, it earns its spot as the list's anchor.
Kim Crawford Sauvignon Blanc
Yes, it's ubiquitous, but New Zealand Sauvignon Blanc and raw oysters is a textbook match that most people overlook in favor of Chardonnay. Bright citrus and herbaceous snap cut right through the brine — don't sleep on it just because you've seen it at every grocery store in America.
Meiomi Pinot Noir
Meiomi is a fine wine for a Tuesday night at home, but at restaurant markup it's hard to justify — you're paying a premium for a brand that costs $15 off the shelf and doesn't exactly scream 'oyster bar destination.' Save the red wine budget for dinner somewhere with more ambition on the bottle list.
Kim Crawford Sauvignon Blanc + Oysters on the Half Shell
Classic for a reason — the high-acid, citrus-forward profile of the Kim Crawford acts like a squeeze of lemon over the raw bar. It's clean, it's bright, and it makes the oysters taste more like themselves. Sometimes the obvious call is the right one.
The Bottom Line
Market Street Oyster Bar is a reliable spot for wine if you calibrate your expectations accordingly — this is a crowd-pleaser list built for a crowd-pleaser room, and it mostly delivers. Send a friend here for oysters and a glass of Sauvignon Blanc, not for a wine education.
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