Good things come in threes: The Travelers, TPC River Highlands, June 19-22, 2025
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It’s not every mid-sized US city where we can say you’ve got three totally legit options, including strong lists leaning organic that are compiled with genuine imagination. Prices are mostly reasonable, there are good mixes of interesting lower-priced wines and splurges, and I’d be happy in any of them
Restaurants
Go to Max Downtown for a competent list with genuine strength in California reds. Solid selections in most other categories and some relative value if you poke around. Wine list
Barcelona is a paradise for lovers of wines from Spain and other Spanish-speaking countries. There’s great breadth and depth in all relevant areas. The rest of the world is represented and there’s evidence of both solid curation and a genuine desire to offer wines out of the mainstream. Ole! Wine list
Union Kitchen features a compact, well-curated list that features small growers farming sustainably. It’s got lots of fun choices and reasonable prices. The engaged sommelier/wine guy can’t resist tossing in short messages about certain wines (iconic, anyone?) Would be my probable first choice for something new and interesting. Wine List
Retail
The Wise Old Dog has one of the strangest presentations of retail inventory we’ve ever seen online. There is a filtering hierarchy so granular that you wonder how many “low tannin”, “creamy” reds from South Africa they actually stock. Otherwise, the inventory is large and fun, except many wines on the website are sold out and there’s an extremely annoying “goes with” rollover that obscures the page every time you hover over a wine. They get an “A” for ambition if not for execution.
