Salty's on the Columbia

Walking into a waterfront seafood spot, you expect safe Chardonnay and nothing more — Salty's quietly defies that. There's a sommelier on staff (Tim O'Brien, who's actually curating things), a dedicated half-price wine night, and a list that swings from Monument's experimental Oregon lineup to Bollinger Champagne without breaking a sweat. This is not your average fish house list.

The list leans into its PNW identity without being parochial about it — Ponzi and Penner-Ash anchor the Oregon side with credibility, while Wayfarer brings some Sonoma Coast cool to the California contingent. Italy shows up with Tenuta di Arcanum and Michele Chiarlo, France checks in via Bollinger and Henriot in Champagne, and Monument Wine supplies a genuinely adventurous Oregon trio including a Syrah, a Pinot Noir, and a white blend that you wouldn't expect to find next to a crab stack. The gaps are real — no deep Burgundy, no serious Riesling, limited Spanish presence — but for a seafood destination on the Columbia River, the ambition here is legitimately surprising. Freemark Abbey and Mt. Brave round out the California side with some cellar-worthy Cabernet territory.

Specific by-the-glass counts aren't published, but the presence of an active sommelier program and regular wine dinners suggests the pours rotate with intention rather than sitting stale for weeks. If the half-price bottle night on Mondays is any indication, O'Brien is engaged enough to keep the glass program from going on autopilot — but you'll want to ask what's actually open that night.