Wine Wednesday Saves an Otherwise Forgettable List
Near Campus / Kirkwood · Bloomington · American pub food and bar · Visit Website ↗
Reviewed by the RagingWine Tasting Desk · July 10, 2026
RagingWine reviewed Nick's English Hut’s wine list and gave it The Lazy List — RagingWine’s Vibe-Check rating. How RagingWine reviews wine lists →
Wingman Metrics
Walk into Nick's and you're greeted by decades of IU history, pennants, and the unmistakable smell of a bar that has seen things. The wine list, if you can call it that, is a footnote on a menu built entirely around beer and burgers. Nobody is coming here for the Chardonnay, and the list knows it.
The selection reads like the wine aisle at a gas station that's trying its best — Josh Cellars Cab, Kendall-Jackson Chard, a La Marca Prosecco split. It's California all the way, no surprises, no detours, no ambition. There are no producers here that would make anyone raise an eyebrow for any reason other than recognition. To be fair, Nick's is a 100-year-old college bar, not Eleven Madison Park — but that doesn't mean the wine program gets a pass for phoning it in this hard.
Four to six pours on any given night, all hovering around the $10 mark. The rotation doesn't really rotate — these are the usual suspects, poured with no ceremony and probably from a bottle that's been open since last Tuesday. The saving grace is Wine Wednesday, when everything drops 50% and suddenly a $10 glass of Josh Cellars becomes a $5 glass of Josh Cellars, which is a different emotional experience entirely.
Kendall-Jackson Vintner's Reserve Chardonnay (on Wine Wednesday) — $5
At half price on Wednesdays, it's a $5 glass of a perfectly drinkable, crowd-friendly Chard. You're not discovering anything, but you're not getting ripped off either. That's the best you can say about wine at Nick's.
La Marca Prosecco
The 187ml split is a low-commitment move that actually works here — grab it during Wine Wednesday, crack it open with mozzarella sticks, and pretend you're somewhere slightly fancier. It's a small win in an otherwise flat program.
Josh Cellars Cabernet Sauvignon
At $10 a glass on a regular night, you're paying bar markup on a $13 retail bottle that any grocery store stocks. There's no reason to spring for this at full price when Wine Wednesday exists and there's a perfectly good beer list two inches to the left on the menu.
La Marca Prosecco + Mozzarella Sticks
The bubbles cut through the grease and the cheese pull in a way that's genuinely satisfying. It won't win any pairing awards but it's the most fun you'll have with wine at Nick's, and fun is kind of the whole point of this place.
Wednesday — Wine Wednesday — all bottles of wine are 50% off all day every Wednesday.
❌ The Bottom Line
Nick's is an institution worth visiting for the atmosphere, the history, and the cold beer — not the wine list. If you do end up here on a Wednesday, half-price bottles make the program bearable; any other night, order a Kirkwood Lager and move on.
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