Bourbon Country's Best Kept Wine Secret
Beam Distillery Area · Bardstown · Contemporary Southern / Bourbon-Inspired American · Visit Website ↗
Reviewed by the RagingWine Tasting Desk · July 26, 2026
RagingWine reviewed The Kitchen Table at James B. Beam Distilling Co.’s wine list and gave it The Wild Card — RagingWine’s Vibe-Check rating. How RagingWine reviews wine lists →
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Wingman Metrics
You're on the James B. Beam campus, surrounded by bourbon barrels and wood smoke, and somehow there's a real wine list sitting on the table. It's short and plays it safe — Stag's Leap, La Crema, Whispering Angel — but in the middle of Kentucky's Bourbon Trail, the fact that someone tried at all earns points. This is a bourbon restaurant that happens to serve wine, not the other way around.
The list clocks in somewhere between 20 and 40 bottles, which is respectable for a distillery dining room that has zero obligation to impress wine drinkers. The anchors are recognizable American names — Stag's Leap Wine Cellars Cab, La Crema Pinot Noir — and Whispering Angel rosé for the crowd that orders pink without a second thought. There's no real Old World depth here, no adventurous skin-contact pours or obscure Rhône valley finds, but these are dependable bottles that won't embarrass themselves next to a wood-fired steak. The gaps are obvious: no sparkling, thin white wine coverage, and zero local Kentucky producers, which feels like a missed opportunity given the setting.
The by-the-glass program runs 8–14 options depending on the season, which is a solid count for a restaurant of this size and focus. Expect the usuals — the La Crema Pinot, probably the Whispering Angel, and a safe Cab option. Don't come here expecting a rotating glass program with weekly surprises; what's on the list is what's on the list.
La Crema Pinot Noir — $
La Crema is widely available, so you know what you're getting — a reliable, food-friendly Sonoma Coast Pinot that won't fight the kitchen's wood-fired flavors. In a room built around bourbon, grabbing a glass of this by the fire is the right move if you're not in the whiskey headspace.
Whispering Angel Rosé
Yes, it's everywhere. Yes, it's a lifestyle brand at this point. But in Bardstown, Kentucky, at a distillery restaurant where the default drink is a neat pour of Jim Beam, ordering a glass of Whispering Angel rosé is a quietly subversive act — and the wine itself is clean, dry, and genuinely pleasant with the lighter seasonal small plates.
Stag's Leap Wine Cellars Cabernet Sauvignon
Stag's Leap is a legitimate Napa producer with a storied history, but it's also one of the most marked-up labels in American restaurant wine culture. You're almost certainly paying a significant premium over retail here, and in a distillery setting without a dedicated cellar program to back it up, there are better ways to spend that money — starting with the bourbon list two pages over.
La Crema Pinot Noir + Wood-fired pork
The smoke and char from the wood-fired preparation need something with enough fruit to stand up without overwhelming the meat's natural sweetness. La Crema's Pinot hits that mark — enough red fruit and acidity to cut through the fat, not so much tannin that it clashes with the smoke. It's the obvious call and it works.
🎲 The Bottom Line
The Kitchen Table is first and foremost a bourbon experience, and the wine list knows its place in that pecking order. If you're on the Bourbon Trail with a wine lover in tow, this is a perfectly acceptable landing spot — just temper expectations, lean toward the Pinot, and let them order the whiskey flights.
Heaven Hill · Bardstown · Lounge
If you're at Bardstown Bourbon Company, drink bourbon — the wine list here is not the reason you came and it won't give you a reason to revisit. The pricing is fair and the pours are inoffensive, but this is a lounge that's made its priorities abundantly clear.
Crowd Pleasers
Fair
Basic Stemmed
Rotating Cast
Set & Forget
Acceptable
East Bardstown / Parkway Drive · Bardstown · New American / Distillery Restaurant
The wine list at BBC Kitchen & Bar does exactly enough to keep non-bourbon drinkers comfortable, and not much else. Send your wine-curious friends here for the experience, but tell them to start with the bourbon.
Crowd Pleasers
Steep
Basic Stemmed
Willing but Green
Set & Forget
Acceptable
Downtown / Spalding Hall · Bardstown · Steakhouse / American
The Rickhouse is a perfectly competent steakhouse wine list doing exactly what a steakhouse wine list in bourbon country is supposed to do — familiar names, heavy pours, and enough bottles to keep the table happy. Just go in knowing you're paying for the atmosphere and the ambiance of that historic cellar as much as what's in the glass.
Crowd Pleasers
Steep
Basic Stemmed
Willing but Green
Set & Forget
Acceptable
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