Napa's Steakhouse With a Serious Cellar Problem
· Yountville · Steakhouse · Visit Website ↗
Reviewed by the RagingWine Tasting Desk · September 28, 2026
RagingWine reviewed Press’s wine list and gave it The Wild Card — RagingWine’s Vibe-Check rating. How RagingWine reviews wine lists →
Wingman Metrics
Press sits in the heart of wine country with the confidence of a place that knows exactly what it's doing — and charges accordingly. The room is polished, reservations are expected, and the wine program is clearly the co-star, not an afterthought. From the jump, this feels less like a steakhouse with a wine list and more like a wine destination that happens to serve excellent beef.
The program leans hard into Napa Valley's greatest sub-appellations — Mt. Veeder, St. Helena, Atlas Peak, Oak Knoll District — which tells you this isn't a list padded out with grocery-store labels. The geographic specificity signals genuine curation, the kind you'd expect from a dedicated cellar rather than a corporate beverage director phoning it in from a spreadsheet. Wine pairings run from roughly $275 to $695 on top of the prix fixe, which means the top end of this list is firmly in collector territory. We can't speak to every producer on the menu without the full list in hand, but the regional depth and pricing architecture suggest a serious, long-form cellar built over years.
By-the-glass specifics aren't publicly documented in enough detail to break down pour-by-pour. Given the tasting menu format and the pairing-focused identity of the program, the real action here is almost certainly in the bottle and pairing tiers rather than the glass menu. If you're coming here for a casual two-glass dinner, you may be swimming upstream.
The Bottom Line
Press is a special-occasion restaurant with a wine program built to match — deep Napa regional focus, a sommelier on staff, and pairing options that range from serious to stratospheric. The pricing is steep by design, and you should go in knowing the wine spend can easily outpace the food bill. If you're willing to lean into it, this is exactly the kind of Napa experience the valley was built around.
· Yountville · Italian
Ciccio's wine list is a tight, opinionated thirteen-bottle argument for Italian varieties in Napa Valley, and it mostly wins. If you're eating Italian food and want something more interesting than the usual Napa Cab, this is exactly where you should be drinking — the Altamura Nebbiolo and Ciavolich Montepulciano alone are worth the detour.
Small but Thoughtful
Fair
Basic Stemmed
Rotating Cast
Set & Forget
Acceptable
· Yountville · French
Angele is a genuinely lovely spot — the room, the food, the riverfront setting all deliver — and the wine list appears to hold its own for a French bistro in Napa without trying to be something it's not. That said, wine-country markups are real here, and without a deeper confirmed list to work from, we'd say: order what the staff recommends, keep your expectations calibrated to 'solid bistro' rather than 'serious wine destination,' and let the duck confit do the heavy lifting.
Solid Range
Steep
Basic Stemmed
Willing but Green
Set & Forget
Acceptable
Southern Yountville / Washington Street corridor · Yountville · Lounge / Bar
Hotel Yountville's lobby lounge is a perfectly fine place to decompress with a glass of something Napa-famous after a day on Washington Street, but we wouldn't make a special trip for the wine list. Send your friends here for the vibe; tell them to know their order before they sit down.
Plays It Safe
Steep
Basic Stemmed
Willing but Green
Set & Forget
Acceptable
North Yountville · Yountville · Wine tasting with artisanal cheese pairings
Jessup Cellars is a genuinely good time if you go in knowing what it is: a focused, house-wine tasting experience in one of the most expensive zip codes in American wine country. It's not a deep list, it's not a bargain, but it's warm, well-executed, and a smarter afternoon than most of what's on Highway 29.
Small but Thoughtful
Steep
Varietal Specific
Knowledgeable & Friendly
Set & Forget
Proper
South Yountville · Yountville · Bar / Small Plates
R+D's bar list isn't trying to be a destination wine program and it doesn't pretend to be — it's a well-executed, fairly priced casual list that punches above its weight for a Hillstone concept sitting in the heart of wine country. Send a friend here if they want good wine without homework.
Crowd Pleasers
Fair
Basic Stemmed
Willing but Green
Set & Forget
Acceptable
Central Yountville · Yountville · Wine Tasting Salon
The JCB Tasting Salon is a one-house show — and if you're good with that, it's a well-run, beautifully staged one. The steep pricing and narrow scope keep it from Rager territory, but the cross-continental angle and proper sommelier guidance make it a legitimate Wild Card worth booking once.
Small but Thoughtful
Steep
Varietal Specific
Knowledgeable & Friendly
Set & Forget
Proper
· Vail · Steakhouse
Russell's isn't trying to be a wine destination and doesn't need to be — but the list is better than the room probably demands. Fair pricing, a genuine global reach, and twenty pours by the glass make this a steakhouse wine program worth engaging with. Order the Fincas de Ganuza, skip the Laurent Perrier, and leave the mountain resort markup where it belongs: on the cocktail list.
Solid Range
Fair
Basic Stemmed
Rotating Cast
Set & Forget
Acceptable
· Laredo · Steakhouse
El Asador is clearly a destination for the food — the wood-fired steaks, the Tuétano al Piquín, the oysters — and the margaritas are probably doing heavy lifting at the bar. But the wine list is a placeholder, not a program. Five unlabeled, undated-for-rotation bottles at a polished steakhouse in 2024 is a miss. Come for the beef, order a cocktail, and hope someone eventually hands this list to someone who cares.
Grocery Store
Fair
Basic Stemmed
Rotating Cast
Set & Forget
Acceptable
The Domain · Round Rock · Steakhouse
Fleming's The Domain is a reliable, polished corporate wine program — the 43-glass pour options and some quietly interesting whites (Loosen Bros., Abadía de San Campio, Lucien Albrecht) give it more range than the steakhouse chain label implies. Markups run steep, especially on the sparkling side, so go in with eyes open and steer toward the underordered stuff. Send a friend here if they want a safe, well-executed wine experience with their ribeye — just don't expect any real surprises.
Crowd Pleasers
Steep
Basic Stemmed
Rotating Cast
Set & Forget
Acceptable
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