Great Room, Wine List Needs Work
Back Bay · Boston · Italian · Visit Website ↗
Updated April 2026
Reviewed by the RagingWine Tasting Desk · March 23, 2026
RagingWine reviewed Piattini’s wine list and gave it The Lazy List — RagingWine’s Vibe-Check rating. How RagingWine reviews wine lists →
Wingman Metrics
Walking into Piattini on Newbury Street, the Italian enoteca energy is real — small plates, warm lighting, the whole thing. Then you open the wine list and it starts strong: 100-plus bottles, heavy Italian focus, some serious names scattered throughout. But flip a few pages and the cracks show fast.
The Italian backbone here is genuinely solid — Antinori Solaia, Brunello di Montalcino from Colombini, Barolo from Ca'Viola, and Allegrini Amarone give the list real credibility at the top end. The problem is the middle and entry tiers, which lean on grocery-store stalwarts like Josh Cellars Chardonnay and Kenwood Cabernet Sauvignon — bottles you can grab at Stop & Shop for $14 and $18, respectively, being sold here for $46 and $59. The Italian house pours are similarly thin: La Vis Pinot Grigio and Zonin Prosecco are fine in their place, but not at 200% markup. There's a real list hiding here behind the budget filler; it just needs a tighter edit.
Twenty-plus options by the glass is a legitimately good number for a neighborhood Italian spot, and the range covers the usual suspects — whites, reds, bubbles, rosé. What's missing is any sense of rotation or curation; this reads like a static list that hasn't been touched in a while. At $10–$17 a glass, you're paying mid-tier Boston prices for entry-level pours.
Barolo Ca'Viola — $N/A — bottle
If you're going to spend money here, spend it on this. Ca'Viola makes real Barolo — not a trophy bottle, but the kind of producer who actually gives a damn about Nebbiolo. It's the most honest pour on the list relative to what you're getting in the glass.
Brunello di Montalcino Colombini
Colombini (Donatella Cinelli Colombini) is a name most people scroll past because they don't recognize it, but this is a respected Montalcino producer making age-worthy Brunello. On a list that otherwise leans safe, this is the bottle worth hunting down.
Chardonnay Josh Cellars Craftsman 2023
At $46 a bottle, you're paying nearly 3.5x retail for a $14 grocery store Chardonnay. Josh Cellars is fine at a backyard barbecue. It has no business commanding $46 on a restaurant wine list that's supposedly celebrating Italian culture.
Amarone Allegrini + Piattini small plates (cured meats and aged cheeses)
Allegrini's Amarone is a big, raisined, serious red that needs something equally rich to stand up to it. A spread of cured meats and hard cheeses from the piattini selection gives it the fat and salt it wants — and turns a few small plates into an actual moment.
The Bottom Line
Piattini has the bones of a great Italian wine bar — the right address, the right vibe, a few genuinely exciting bottles — but the markup on entry-level pours and the reliance on supermarket brands undercut the whole thing. Go for the Brunello or the Barolo, skip everything else under $50.
· Boston · Brazilian Steakhouse
Fogo de Chão is here to sell you a meat experience, and the wine list is an afterthought that exists to support that mission — not elevate it. Stick to the Zuccardi Malbec or the Garzón Albariño and spend your energy on the food.
Crowd Pleasers
Steep
Basic Stemmed
Rotating Cast
Set & Forget
Acceptable
· Boston · Steakhouse
STK Boston has the square footage, the lighting, and the noise level of a place that should have a serious wine program — instead it has 142 labels of stuff you've already tried. Order a cocktail, or pick the most interesting bottle you can find and move on.
Crowd Pleasers
Steep
Basic Stemmed
Rotating Cast
Set & Forget
Acceptable
Seaport District · Boston · Greek
Trade is doing something genuinely rare in Boston: taking Greek wine seriously and giving diners the tools to explore it without a lecture. If you're eating anywhere near the Seaport and curious about what's actually in your glass, this is the move.
Surprising Depth
Fair
Basic Stemmed
Willing but Green
Set & Forget
Proper
Financial District · Boston · American Steakhouse
The Vermilion Club isn't trying to reinvent the steakhouse wine list, and it doesn't need to — the California depth is real, the execution is consistent, and it delivers exactly what a power-lunch crowd in the Financial District wants. Just know what you're walking into: this is Cab country, the markups are steakhouse-standard steep, and adventurous wine drinkers should calibrate expectations accordingly.
Plays It Safe
Steep
Basic Stemmed
Willing but Green
Set & Forget
Proper
Post Office Square · Boston · Cuban
Mariel earns its Wine Spectator credential by being genuinely thoughtful about a list that could have easily phoned it in. If you're in Boston's Financial District and want something more interesting than another steakhouse Cab Franc, this is exactly the kind of wild card worth having in your back pocket.
Solid Range
Fair
Basic Stemmed
Willing but Green
Set & Forget
Acceptable
Back Bay · Boston · Seafood
Atlantic Fish is a reliable, well-run wine program in a room that takes its seafood seriously — Greg Bergeron keeps the white Burgundy and Italian whites sharp and the BTG list honest. Markups will sting on the big bottles, but if you navigate toward the value end of the list, you'll drink very well.
Solid Range
Steep
Basic Stemmed
Knowledgeable & Friendly
Set & Forget
Proper
· Healdsburg · Italian
Ciao Bruto is running one of the smallest and most coherent wine lists in wine country, which is either audacious or brilliant — probably both. If you want a 200-label deep-dive, go somewhere else. If you want eight smart picks at prices that won't make you wince, this is the move in Healdsburg.
Small but Thoughtful
Steal
Basic Stemmed
Rotating Cast
Set & Forget
Acceptable
Geyserville · Healdsburg · Italian
Diavola earns its Wild Card badge because it's a wood-fired pizza joint that punches well above its weight on wine — sommelier on staff, regional focus, and a setting that practically demands you order a second glass. We can't give you the bottle-by-bottle breakdown until we get eyes on a current list, but the bones here are good enough to say: don't just order a beer and move on.
Small but Thoughtful
Fair
Basic Stemmed
Knowledgeable & Friendly
Set & Forget
Proper
· Healdsburg · Italian
Ca'Bianca is a genuinely lovely place to eat, and if the food lives up to its reputation for house-made pasta and classic Italian technique, a bottle of something from the list is absolutely worth ordering. We just can't tell you exactly which bottle to order yet — the wine program's specifics aren't publicly documented well enough for us to make a confident call. When in doubt, ask your server what's local and what they're excited about, and go from there.
Plays It Safe
Steep
Basic Stemmed
Willing but Green
Set & Forget
Acceptable
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