Mountain Lodge Hiding a Serious Cellar
Downtown Truckee · Truckee · Contemporary American · Visit Website ↗
Reviewed by the RagingWine Tasting Desk · July 25, 2026
RagingWine reviewed The Lodge Restaurant & Pub’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 pulling up to a Tahoe Donner golf course lodge expecting house Chardonnay and a decent Cab — and then the wine list lands with Dom Pérignon, Kosta Browne, and Gaja on it. That's not what we expected at 6,000 feet in the Sierra Nevada. Whether the room lives up to the list is a different conversation, but the ambition here is real.
About 130 labels deep, the list leans hard into California — Napa and Sonoma Coast do most of the heavy lifting, with Russian River Valley Pinot and a few Willamette and Paso bottles filling out the edges. The Italian presence is genuinely impressive for a mountain lodge: the 2016 Frescobaldi Castel Giocondo Brunello di Montalcino and 2018 Gaja Carmarcanda Red Blend from Tuscany suggest someone actually cares about what's on these pages. The Champagne bench is surprisingly strong too, with Billecart-Salmon Brut Rosé and the 2012 Dom Pérignon sitting alongside each other. The gaps show in white wine depth outside of Chardonnay — Riesling, Grüner, and anything remotely funky are largely absent.
Sixteen pours by the glass is a solid count for a neighborhood lodge, with prices running $10 to $38. The range tracks the bottle list — California-heavy, Chardonnay and Pinot-forward — which is fine but not exactly adventurous. We'd love to see even one wildcard pour in that lineup, but what's here is competent and covers the bases for a ski crowd that mostly wants something familiar after a long day on the mountain.
2021 Chateau Montelena Chardonnay, Napa Valley — Bottle price not confirmed — check current list
Montelena's Napa Chard is the kind of producer name that punches above whatever it costs here. It's historically restrained for a Napa white — think structure over butter — and it's often the quietest overachiever on lists like this one.
2018 Gaja Carmarcanda Red Blend, Tuscany
Most people at a mountain lodge skip the Italian section entirely and go straight for the Napa Cab. That's a mistake. Ca'Marcanda is Gaja's Bolgheri project — Super Tuscan country, Cab and Merlot with Italian finesse — and it's one of the more compelling bottles on this list. Most tables will walk right past it.
2012 Dom Perignon Brut Champagne
At $395, this is a trophy bottle priced for the occasion, not the wine. The 2012 Dom is great — no argument there — but a decade-old prestige Champagne sitting in a mountain lodge's cellar of unknown provenance should give you pause. The markup and the storage question marks make this one to admire on the menu and leave alone.
2022 Raen Royal St. Robert Pinot Noir, Sonoma Coast + Fresh salmon special
Raen's Royal St. Robert is a coastal Pinot with real tension — bright red fruit, saline edge, enough acid to cut through salmon fat without bullying the fish. It's the kind of pairing that feels obvious once you're in it, and it's exactly what this wine was made for.
🎲 The Bottom Line
The Lodge surprises — in the best way — with a wine list that has no business being this considered at a neighborhood golf course restaurant in the Sierra. Markups creep toward steep on the prestige bottles, but the depth and range here beat 90% of similarly-priced mountain dining rooms. Worth the detour if you're in Truckee and want something more than a grocery store Cabernet with your ribeye.
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Basic Stemmed
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Set & Forget
Acceptable
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Basic Stemmed
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Occasional
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Solid Range
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Plays It Safe
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Varietal Specific
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Solid Range
Steep
Basic Stemmed
Knowledgeable & Friendly
Occasional
Proper
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Plays It Safe
Fair
Basic Stemmed
Willing but Green
Set & Forget
Acceptable
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Solid Range
Steep
Varietal Specific
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Solid Range
Steep
Basic Stemmed
Willing but Green
Set & Forget
Acceptable
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