Spuntino Wine Bar & Italian Tapas

You pull into a strip mall in Clifton and somehow walk into a wine bar with Giacomo Conterno and Dal Forno Romano on the list — that's the Spuntino experience in a nutshell. The exposed brick and dim lighting do a lot of heavy lifting, but the wine list is what earns the credibility. Wine Spectator has had them pegged as a Best of Award of Excellence since 2022, and one look at the cellar confirms they're not coasting on it.

The list runs 200-350 bottles with serious Italian depth at its core — Barolo from Bruno Giacosa and Giacomo Conterno, Brunello from Biondi-Santi and Casanova di Neri, and Super Tuscans like Sassicaia and Ornellaia anchoring the prestige end. Chianti Classico Riserva gets proper representation via Antinori and Felsina, and Amarone lovers have both Allegrini and the more intense Dal Forno Romano to choose from. California shows up with Kistler and Far Niente for Chardonnay and Caymus and Jordan holding down the Napa Cab corner. France is the thinnest pillar — Louis Jadot and Joseph Drouhin are reliable Burgundy names but this isn't the list you come to for a deep Côte de Nuits dive.

Twenty to thirty-five pours by the glass is a generous program, and for an Italian tapas concept it makes total sense — you want to hop around the table, you want to hop around the wine list. Wednesday's half-price wine night turns an already reasonable by-the-glass program into a genuinely great deal. We'd love to see more rotation and adventurous picks in the glass program to match the ambition of the bottle list, but what's here gets the job done.