The 60 Best Wine Bars in the United States

The wine list has a dedicated section for aged Madeira, which tells you something about the seriousness of the operation. This moody Poncey-Highland wine bar holds a Michelin selection and landed on Bon Appétit's best new bars list, but the kitchen pulls its own weight with snacks, shareable plates, and evening mains that feel seasonal without being precious. A James Beard semifinalist for Best New Bar, it draws the kind of crowd that actually reads the back label.

A converted cottage on McDowell Road that smells faintly of old rugs and good intentions, Sauvage is a natural wine bar and bottle shop where the list leans toward obscure regions and the staff will talk you through all of it. Charcuterie and tinned fish are always on hand, and local chefs occasionally pop up to cook. Esquire named it one of the best bars in America, which the room, unhurried and candlelit, seems entirely unbothered by.

A corner wine bar in a rambling old house in the Bywater, with a backyard that somehow becomes the whole point. The wine list roams globally and you buy bottles at the shop counter, then take them outside where live music is usually happening and the vibe is somewhere between dinner party and block party. Cheese plates, light bites, no dress code implied. Named among the 50 most essential bars in America by Wildsam.

The menu at this natural wine bar is whatever your bartender decides to tell you about, because nothing is written down. That's a feature, not an oversight. Light Years occupies a converted bungalow on Alabama, pouring organic, biodynamic, and low-intervention bottles that Esquire flagged for its Best Bars in America list. Sit at the bar and let whoever's pouring lead; the conversation is kind of the point.

Named for Lucian Freud, this 40-seat wine restaurant and bookshop in Buckhead stocks art and fashion volumes alongside a list serious enough to earn a James Beard semifinalist nod for its beverage program. The seasonal American menu runs to ricotta gnudi and caviar-topped omelets, the kind of food that pairs naturally with whatever the wine director opens next. Shelves full of books for sale make lingering feel practically obligatory.

Chenin is a tiny wine bar tucked inside The Siren Hotel, pouring natural and biodynamic bottles to a room lit softly enough to forgive anyone's skin-contact experiments. Salty snacks and a mortadella sandwich piled onto focaccia keep the evening going longer than planned. Seats are scarce, so arrive when the doors open. It was a James Beard Award nominee for Best New Bar.

A wine bar in RiNo that keeps fried chicken and tinned fish on the menu alongside Khikhvi, Nerello Mascalese, and a Mencía from Oregon that has no business being that good. The list leans hard into natural, biodynamic, and small-production bottles, and the staff can talk you through all of it without making you feel like a student. Grape nerds and people who just want a glass with snacks coexist peacefully here.

Art deco bones and a sparkling wine list longer than most bars have wines: Marietta Proper is a wine bar on the historic square that also does cocktails, whiskeys, coffee, and a short food menu of sandwiches and pastries. The team behind it includes a sommelier, which shows. A James Beard semifinalist for Best New Bar in 2025, it draws the kind of crowd that knows the difference between pét-nat and Champagne and orders both.

This is a narrow natural-wine bar near Downtown Crossing, the sort of place that introduced a lot of Boston to tinned fish and has been quietly smug about it since. The list is long and a little nerdy, but the bartenders will talk you through it without making you feel graded. Half bottles of nearly everything let you change your mind twice. It was a James Beard semifinalist for its wine program, and on Wednesdays there are fancy hot dogs.

The wine list leans natural, the cocktails are craft, and the menu changes often enough that regulars rarely order the same thing twice. Copper Common is a wine bar and restaurant in downtown Salt Lake City, from the team behind the Copper Onion next door, and the kitchen ranges widely, pairing sharply drawn flavors without making a fuss about it. Salt Lake Magazine named it one of the city's top restaurants.

The wine list runs from skin-contact naturals to premier cru Burgundy, which tells you this Midtown wine bar is not trying to be one thing. It's been around forever, long enough to have shaped Houston's wine culture before anyone here was talking about orange wine. The cheese and charcuterie plate is an honest reason to stay for a second glass. The room is low-key and comfortable, the kind of place regulars treat as a standing appointment.

Shelves of wine bottles line every wall of this small, happily unpretentious wine bar tucked into a strip mall on Indian School. The vibe is couch-and-conversation, the kind of place where you sit down next to strangers and somehow end up closing it down with them. The food menu runs to pimento cheese and Moroccan spiced meatballs, which is a perfectly reasonable way to soak up a second pour. Phoenix New Times named it one of the top 100 bars in the city.

Desert-toned walls and a condensed, always-shifting wine list set the mood at this neo-bistro and wine bar on Seventh Street. The team pulls from old and new world bottles for both pours and a rotating spritz selection, while small plates from the kitchen give you a reason to stay for another glass. A James Beard semifinalist for Best New Bar, it draws the kind of crowd that actually talks to the table next to them.

The sunchoke doughnuts with XO gouda are reportedly un-removable from the menu, which tells you something about this Davis Square wine bar. The list leans toward small producers and natural winemakers, and the staff actually know it. Small plates from the kitchen are the kind of thing a food scientist might dream up on a generous budget. A James Beard Outstanding Bar semifinalist for 2026.

Commune is a listening room and wine bar in Avondale Estates where the DJ booth and the sommelier carry equal weight. Steven Grubbs, formerly of Empire State South, steers an evolving list that includes Georgia wine from Crane Creek Vineyards, a rarity in Atlanta. Food runs from oysters and caviar to roasted chicken, enough to anchor a full evening. Deep-house and indie keep things moving long after the dessert wine arrives.

MotorCity Wine is a Corktown wine bar where the night can turn into a live band and a little dancing if you time it right. The patio does most of the heavy lifting in warm weather, and a taco truck parks in the lot throughout the week, so dinner is handled without anyone fussing over a menu. Charcuterie and guest-chef bites cover the rest, and the bottles are easy to share.

Bar Diane is a wine bar in Northwest Portland where the hand-painted walls look like the rings left behind by a thousand glasses of rosé on a tablecloth. You can perch at the marble bar and get into the weeds on Oregon pinot, or grab a bistro table for a cocktail and a lobster roll. Pours run from affordable table wine to splurgy champagne, so nobody has to pretend to be a sommelier or a billionaire.

Gray's Hall is a South Boston wine bar that has the energy of a friend's living room, if your friend kept a natural-leaning wine list and a small-plate menu that includes a burger. It comes from the team behind American Provisions, the neighborhood's sandwich-and-bottle stop, so the instinct is to feed you while you stay put. Staff stay unbothered even when the place fills up, and a loyal local crowd keeps it that way.

A converted firehouse turned wine bar with a retail shop stocking over 200 bottles you can also drink on the spot. The menu rotates around whatever the chef's neighbor harvests from the garden across the street, which keeps things genuinely seasonal in a way most places only claim. The backyard runs to lawn chairs and picnic blankets, with DJs on weekends. It landed on the New York Times Restaurant List and Bon Appétit's Best New Restaurants in the same year.

Padre's is a wine shop and bar on White Oak where you can grab a bottle for home or settle in with a glass, and the by-the-glass list is long enough to need its own reading time. Chilled reds get unusual respect here, along with mostly European and West Coast bottles and the odd orange wine from the country of Georgia. It's usually packed and loud, so conversation tends to be limited to nodding at your pour.

Rebel Rebel is a tiny natural wine bar tucked into the shipping-container-sized stalls of Bow Market, and it works as a salon as much as a place to drink. Talks with food writers, chocolate pairings, and a Beaujolais Nouveau party where pot-au-feu comes out of a cauldron are all on the calendar. It's casual, the glasses are small-producer pours, and it has been a James Beard semifinalist for wine and beverage programs.

The Authentique is a French wine bar on Gallatin Avenue that went all in on art nouveau: Mucha paintings, embossed wallpaper, and a bar lined with bottles, like a Parisian apartment someone's romantic cousin decorated. The list leans Burgundy, picpoul, and Châteauneuf-du-Pape, with flights for the indecisive. The savory crepes are the draw, especially the raclette one, which makes a strong case for never ordering wine alone again.

The Royce is a wine bar and bottle shop near Grand Circus Park, where walnut shelving, globe lights, and library ladders make buying a bottle feel faintly like checking out a book. A 12-seat bar anchors the first floor, with cured meats and cheeses to keep the pours company. Over 300 bottles are for sale, plenty by the glass, and classes are on offer for anyone who'd rather understand the list than guess at it.

Every book on the shelves, and even pressed under the glass bar top, is about wine. The Library is a wine bar tucked into Spring Branch, where the staff knows their Jura from their Savoie and a "Head Librarian's Preferred Drinking List" exists for anyone who needs a nudge toward a bottle. The selection leans toward esoteric and cult producers, so this is less "Cabernet for the table" and more a place where the menu rewards curiosity.

A U-shaped bar, gold touches, and pink drapery tucked inside a Highland Park strip mall, which is either charming or deeply on-brand depending on your feelings about Highland Park. Coupes is a Champagne and wine bar with a serious poured-glass selection covering French bottles, Crémant, Blanc de Noirs, and Texas pours alongside cocktails for anyone not yet ready to commit to bubbles entirely.

Wine on tap is the organizing principle at this Greenville Avenue wine bar, where the keg system keeps every pour sealed from light and air the way the winemaker intended. The global list runs from super Tuscans and Garnacha to West Coast standbys, with enough deeper cuts to reward the curious. The cracker-thin pizzas are good enough to order twice. The original location has a looser, more free-spirited feel than the Uptown sibling, which suits the neighborhood just fine.

A dark, sleek wine bar in Old Town Scottsdale pouring from Arizona's Willcox region, which Wine Enthusiast has been calling the next Napa with a straight face for years. Co-owner Pavle Milic also runs the beverage program at Charleen Badman's FnB, so the pedigree is real. Bar staff are genuinely gregarious about helping you navigate a glass or flight, while regulars who never need to ask fill the other stools.

A wine bar with a list that runs close to 400 bottles, anchored in Spain and Italy but wandering convincingly into South America and France. It's a chain out of Connecticut, which the lively, group-heavy room makes easy to forget. Tapas keep things going between pours. Good for a party that wants to spend a long evening working through the menu without anyone having to make too many decisions alone.

A retrofitted house in Madrona with a porch and backyard patio that gets claimed fast once the sun appears. Bottlehouse is a neighborhood wine bar with a range that runs from Bolivian syrah to Walla Walla grenache blanc, plus wine cocktails that pair well with whatever the resident cheesemonger is recommending. It feels more like a very well-stocked friend's place than a formal tasting room, which is exactly the point.

A preloaded card and a WineStation let you pour your own way through California vineyards at this wine bar and retail shop in Roswell. The self-service setup covers up to 24 samples, ranging from everyday bottles to collector-tier Napa, so the pace is entirely yours. Sommeliers and producers swing through for ticketed events, and the retail shelves go home with you after. Ideal for the crowd that finds a server hovering a little exhausting.

Biscuits and focaccia hold the fort until afternoon, when this Midtown spot near Piedmont Park quietly pivots into a wine bar. The patio overlooking 12th Street is the reason most people linger, especially with a bottle or a vermouth cocktail and something from the tinned fish and cheese spread. It's a shape-shifting kind of place, which means the crowd skews toward people who know exactly what they're doing.

Sofa cushions, dangling bulbs, and a record player set the tone at this Georgeorgetown natural wine bar, where the bottles lining the walls are all for sale and priced like someone actually wants you to drink them. The pours run funky, orange, unfiltered, and nothing near a Columbia Valley pinot, and the staff will talk you through all of it with genuine enthusiasm. Loretta's next door does burgers; the two go together better than you'd expect.

String lights, happy green plants, and shelves of natural wine with wacky labels set the tone at this Columbia City aperitivo bar and bottle shop. It lives next door to Italian restaurant La Medusa, which means a lot of people wander in for a quick pre-dinner drink and end up staying. The chalkboard runs deep on amari and bitter red spritzes, with prosecco for anyone who prefers their aperitivo without the herbal lecture.

Fifty wines on self-service taps is the organizing idea here, a wine bar inside Chattahoochee Food Works where you load a card and pour your own 1.5-ounce samples until something clicks. A sommelier runs the place, so the selection is serious without being precious. Bottles on tap are available to take home, and a small food menu of charcuterie boards and paninis gives you enough to keep going without turning it into dinner.

A wine shop and tasting room tucked into Edgewood, steps from the Candler Park-Edgewood MARTA station, which makes the flight of three half-pours feel almost responsible. The daily wine flights rotate, and you can also order by the glass or pick up a bottle to take home. A patio out front catches good weather, and the sandwich shop next door means nobody has to drink on an empty stomach.

The name comes from Aristophanes: "Quickly, bring me a beaker of wine so I may wet my mind and say something clever." An intimate neighborhood wine bar connected by a knocked-through wall to the Cork & Bottle shop next door, Clever leans into its origins without being precious about them. The list is serious, the cocktails are well made, and the beers are worth a look too, which is either scope creep or just good sense.

The building is roughly the size and shape of a railway car, wedged next to a gas station on Saint Charles with fairy lights strung through the overhanging trees. Delachaise is a wine and beer bar where the front terrace somehow becomes exactly where you want to be, watching the street roll by. Over 40 wines by the glass keep the options interesting without the prices getting precious about it.

The natural wine list here won a James Beard Award, and the Michelin star belongs to the kitchen, which tells you this Williamsburg bar is doing two things at once and doing neither halfway. The room is famously small and the wait is famously brutal, but Nick Curtola's seasonal menu follows its own logic, landing somewhere between a great wine bar snack and something you'll think about for weeks. James Murphy of LCD Soundsystem is a co-owner, which explains the playlist.