Smoky Mountain steakhouse that gets wine right
Newman Road / Hillside · Gatlinburg · Upscale Steakhouse & American Fine Dining · Visit Website ↗
Reviewed by the RagingWine Tasting Desk · July 29, 2026
RagingWine reviewed The Greenbrier Restaurant’s wine list and gave it The Reliable — RagingWine’s Vibe-Check rating. How RagingWine reviews wine lists →
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Walking into The Greenbrier, you get the full mountain lodge fantasy — dark wood, firelight, the smell of dry-aged beef in the air. The wine list arrives looking confident, a well-curated but predictable selection that leans hard into Napa Cabernet territory. It's not trying to surprise you, and honestly, in Gatlinburg, that restraint is almost admirable.
The list sits somewhere between 50 and 100 labels, anchored almost entirely in California and the Pacific Northwest, with a token nod to Bordeaux. The heavy hitters are all here — Caymus, Jordan, Stag's Leap — which tells you exactly who this list is written for: the steak-and-Cab crowd who wants a recognizable name on the table. The Chateau Ste. Michelle Riesling is the lone curveball and a legitimately smart call for a menu that features trout and seafood specials. Don't come looking for Burgundy, Italian varietals, or anything that came from a cave in the Jura.
The glass program runs 8 to 15 options at $12 to $20 a pour, which is serviceable for a fine dining room in a tourist-heavy mountain town. There's no evidence of any active rotation or weekly updates — what you see is what you get, probably for the entire season. That said, if Jordan or Stag's Leap is available by the glass on a given night, you won't hear us complaining.
Chateau Ste. Michelle Riesling — $45
In a room full of $80-plus Napa reds, this Washington State Riesling likely sits at the lower end of the bottle list and earns every dollar. It's the right call for the trout or scallops, and most tables will overlook it in favor of a Cab. Their loss, your gain.
Chateau Ste. Michelle Riesling
It's sitting quietly at the bottom of a list dominated by Napa Cabernet, and almost no one ordering a ribeye is going to look at it twice. But if you're splitting the table between the steak and the seafood special, this bottle is the bridge — and it's almost certainly the best value per dollar on the entire list.
Caymus Cabernet Sauvignon
Caymus is a fine wine. It's also a wine you can find at Costco for around $80. In a restaurant setting it'll run you significantly more, and you're essentially paying a premium for the comfort of a label you already know. Jordan does the same job for less, and Stag's Leap does it with more finesse.
Jordan Cabernet Sauvignon + Dry-Aged Ribeye
Jordan's Sonoma Cab has enough structure to cut through the fat on a well-marbled dry-aged ribeye without the jammy bomb that Caymus brings. It's the more elegant choice for the restaurant's flagship cut, and the slightly lower price point compared to Caymus makes it the smarter order.
✔️ The Bottom Line
The Greenbrier is doing exactly what a fine dining steakhouse in a national park tourist corridor should do with wine — keeping it approachable, stocking names people recognize, and not getting too weird about it. It's not a wine destination, but it won't embarrass itself either; send a friend who wants a solid Cab with a great steak and a mountain view.
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