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 →
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.
Downtown · Iowa City · Mexican / Tex-Mex
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
Near Northside / Coralville border · Iowa City · Upscale American Steak and Chops
Iowa River Power is a perfectly respectable steakhouse wine list in a genuinely memorable room — but the list plays it too safe and prices too high to be anything more than serviceable. Send a friend here for the ambiance and the prime rib; tell them to pick carefully on the wine.
Crowd Pleasers
Steep
Basic Stemmed
Willing but Green
Set & Forget
Acceptable
Northside · Iowa City · Diner / New American
Bluebird earns serious love for its food, but the wine list is pure filler — seven grocery-store bottles on a set-and-forget program. Order the biscuits and gravy, grab a coffee, and save the wine for somewhere that cares.
Grocery Store
Fair
Basic Stemmed
MIA
Set & Forget
Acceptable
Downtown · Iowa City · Pub
Micky's is a great Irish pub — for Guinness, whiskey, and a Reuben at midnight. The wine program is an afterthought dressed up as a menu section, and nobody on either side of the bar is pretending otherwise. Order the beer.
Grocery Store
Fair
Basic Stemmed
MIA
Set & Forget
Acceptable
Downtown · Iowa City · Contemporary American / Gastropub
One Twenty Six is an anomaly — a downtown Iowa City gastropub with a wine list that would hold its own in a Chicago neighborhood restaurant. The markups on trophy bottles get steep fast, but there's real depth here if you know where to look, and the French selections alone are worth the reservation.
Surprising Depth
Steep
Basic Stemmed
Willing but Green
Set & Forget
Acceptable
Downtown · Iowa City · New American
Hearth is a fine place to drink wine, not a destination to drink wine — the list is short, the markups are real, and the picks lean commercial. But that Tuesday half-price bottle deal changes the math entirely: come back midweek, grab the Rhône blend, and you're suddenly getting a great deal at a lively spot.
Crowd Pleasers
Steep
Basic Stemmed
Willing but Green
Seasonal Rotation
Acceptable
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