Best Wine Lists in Kentucky

The Bar at Willett

· Bardstown · Gourmet Small Plates

The Wild Card

The Bar at Willett earns its Wild Card badge because nobody walks into a Kentucky distillery expecting a Loire-focused wine list over gourmet small plates — and the fact that it might exist here is worth investigating in person. We don't have enough sourced detail to tell you exactly what to order, but if you find yourself at Willett and the bourbon's already flowing, ask about the wine. You might be pleasantly surprised, and that's worth something.

Buffalo Wild Wings

· Bardstown · Sports bar

The Lazy List

If you're in Bardstown and craving wings, Buffalo Wild Wings will do the job. If you're planning to drink wine with those wings, our advice is simple: don't. The beer list is longer, the staff knows it better, and your money goes further. Come for the sports, stay for the lager.

Drake's Bowling Green

· Bowling Green · American / Sports Bar

The Reliable

Drake's Bowling Green isn't a wine destination, but it's doing more than most sports bars bother to do — familiar producers, a nearly all-by-the-glass program, and a few bottles worth ordering. Just watch the markups on anything above $60 a bottle.

Lily May Bourbon Company

· Bowling Green · American / Bourbon Bar

The Lazy List

Lily May is a bourbon bar through and through, and the wine list exists purely as a courtesy to the non-whiskey drinker at the table. Order the bourbon; let your wine-loving friend pick from the cocktail menu.

Bottle & Bond Lounge

Heaven Hill · Bardstown · Lounge

The Lazy List

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.

The Kitchen Table at James B. Beam Distilling Co.

Beam Distillery Area · Bardstown · Contemporary Southern / Bourbon-Inspired American

The Wild Card

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.

Kitchen & Bar at Bardstown Bourbon Company

East Bardstown / Parkway Drive · Bardstown · New American / Distillery Restaurant

The Reliable

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.

The Rickhouse Restaurant & Lounge

Downtown / Spalding Hall · Bardstown · Steakhouse / American

The Reliable

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.

Logan's Roadhouse

Scottsville Road · Bowling Green · Steakhouse

The Lazy List

Logan's Roadhouse isn't here to impress you with wine, and it doesn't. Order a beer, grab a bourbon, or smuggle in something worth drinking — the wine list is an afterthought and it knows it.

Los Primos Mexican Bar and Grill

Old Morgantown Road · Bowling Green · Mexican

The Lazy List

Los Primos is a solid neighborhood Mexican spot, but the wine program is purely incidental — three glasses, no bottles, no story. Stick to the margaritas, which is almost certainly what the kitchen and bar were built around anyway.

Yuki Japanese Restaurant

Scottsville Road · Bowling Green · Japanese

The Lazy List

Come to Yuki for the sushi, which by all accounts earns its local-staple status. Come for the wine only if you're keeping it simple — stick to the Stoneleigh or the Wollersheim Riesling and call it a night.

Montana Grille Bar

Scottsville Road Corridor · Bowling Green · Bar / Steakhouse

The Reliable

Montana Grille Bar is a reliable pour in a city that isn't exactly overrun with serious wine programs — you won't find anything that surprises you, but you won't get burned either. If you're ordering a Wagyu steak, Jordan or Stag's Leap will carry the night just fine.