Peterson's Restaurant

Walking into Peterson's in Fishers, Indiana, you don't expect to see Gaja Barbaresco and Antinori Super Tuscans anchoring a wine list that earned a Wine Spectator Award of Excellence in its first year of eligibility. The list is tightly curated — somewhere in the 150-250 bottle range — and it reads like someone actually thought about it rather than just calling up a distributor and saying yes to everything.

The list leans hard into California, France, and Italy, and that focus works in its favor. You've got Caymus and Silver Oak Alexander Valley for the crowd-pleasers, Stag's Leap for the serious Cab drinkers, and Jordan for the crowd that wants quality without paying trophy-wine prices. France shows up respectably with Louis Jadot Burgundy and Joseph Drouhin Chablis — not just token pours but real producers worth drinking. Italy gets the star treatment with Gaja Barbaresco and Antinori Super Tuscans, which is genuinely impressive for a steakhouse in suburban Indianapolis. The gaps are real — if you want Rhône, Ribera del Duero, or anything from the natural wine world, look elsewhere — but within its lane, this list is well-executed.

Twelve to twenty options by the glass is a solid spread for a place like this, and with sommelier Tanner Hays running the program, the pours aren't just filler. Expect the glass list to mirror the bottle program's California-forward bias, which honestly isn't a bad thing when you're ordering a prime steak. We'd like to see more French and Italian representation open by the glass, but what's here is dependable.