Great Pizza, Forget the Wine List Exists
Downtown · Iowa City · Pizza / Italian-American · Visit Website ↗
Reviewed by the RagingWine Tasting Desk · July 14, 2026
RagingWine reviewed Pagliai's Pizza’s wine list and gave it The Lazy List — RagingWine’s Vibe-Check rating. How RagingWine reviews wine lists →
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Wingman Metrics
The wine list at Pagliai's is essentially a gas station cooler in menu form — Franzia, Yellow Tail, Barefoot, and Sutter Home, all present and accounted for. This is a pizza joint that clearly made peace with being a pizza joint, which is fine, except someone still bothered to print a wine list. That someone perhaps should have reconsidered.
Eight to fifteen selections sounds like a number, but when those selections are dominated by Franzia, Barefoot Moscato, Sutter Home White Zinfandel, Yellow Tail, and Woodbridge, the count doesn't matter much. There's a nominal nod toward Italy and California as region focus, but in practice this list could stock a checkout line at a grocery store. No producers worth flagging, no interesting varietals lurking in the back half of the menu, no surprises — just the familiar faces of mass-market wine wearing the same tired expressions.
By-the-glass options run four to eight pours, which sounds reasonable until you see what they are. The standout — if you can call it that — is the Franzia Chillable Red by the glass at $4, which is honestly priced for what it is. Everything else on the glass list is a familiar name marked up past the point of enthusiasm.
Franzia Chillable Red NV (by the glass) — $4
At $4 a glass, this is priced with total honesty — it's Franzia, you know what you're getting, and nobody's pretending otherwise. In a list full of grocery-store bottles marked up aggressively, this is the one pour where the price matches the product.
Woodbridge by Robert Mondavi Merlot NV
It's still a mass-market bottle and not exactly a discovery, but if you're committed to a red with your sausage pie, this is the most food-friendly option on the list — soft, inoffensive, and at least built for a table setting rather than a tailgate.
Yellow Tail Cabernet Sauvignon NV
At $22 a bottle, you're paying 175% over retail for a wine that retails around $8. That's a lot of money for a lot of nothing — skip it entirely and put the difference toward another pizza.
Franzia Chillable Red NV + Sausage and pepperoni specialty pizza
Look, this is a casual, retro pizza spot with $4 pours and thin-crust pies. The Chillable Red is soft, slightly sweet, and completely unpretentious — which makes it oddly appropriate alongside a classic sausage and pepperoni slice in a room that hasn't changed its decor since the Carter administration.
The Bottom Line
Pagliai's earns its legendary status in Iowa City as a pizza destination — the wine list, however, is an afterthought that nobody on staff or in the kitchen appears to think about much. Order a beer, order a soda, order another slice, and save the wine conversation for somewhere else.
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Plays It Safe
Fair
Basic Stemmed
Willing but Green
Set & Forget
Acceptable
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Plays It Safe
Steep
Basic Stemmed
Willing but Green
Set & Forget
Acceptable
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Solid Range
Steep
Basic Stemmed
Willing but Green
Set & Forget
Acceptable
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Plays It Safe
Steep
Basic Stemmed
Willing but Green
Active Program
Acceptable
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Order the margarita. Seriously. But if someone at the table insists on wine, the Barefoot pours are priced so close to retail that you're not getting hurt — just don't expect anything more than that.
Grocery Store
Steal
Basic Stemmed
Willing but Green
Set & Forget
Acceptable
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Crowd Pleasers
Steep
Basic Stemmed
Willing but Green
Set & Forget
Acceptable
One wine list review, one adventure pick, one quick tip, and a personal note. Every week. Under 500 words.
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